HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. 



165 



to come, will not be less than twenty millions of feet 

 per annum, which, at $40 per thousand, will be 

 $800,000. 



"When California comes to have a population of 

 200,000, which she will have before the close of the 

 present year, she will require nearly half a million 

 barrels of flour from some quarter, and no country 

 can supply it so good and cheap as the old States of 

 the Union. Including freight arid insurance, this 

 may be set down as an item of about $5,000,000. The 

 article of clothing, allowing $20 to each person, would 

 be $4,000,000. 



w There is no pretension to accuracy in these items, 

 and they may be estimated too high ; but it is quite 

 as probable they are too low. 



""We have no data on which to found a calculation 

 of what the value of the trade between the States east 

 of the Rocky Mountains and California will be during 

 the current year. I will venture the opinion, how 

 ever, that it will not fall short of twenty-five millions 

 of dollars. It may go far beyond that sum. At 

 present, I can conceive no cause which will retard or 

 diminish immigration. 



" If the movement shall continue five years, our 

 commerce with that territory may reach one hundred 

 millions per annum. This is doubtless a startling 

 sum ; but it must be borne in mind that we have to 

 build cities and towns, supply machinery for mining, 

 coal for domestic purposes, and steam navigation, and 

 all the multifarious articles used in providing the com 

 forts and luxuries of life, for half a million of people, 

 who will have transferred themselves to a country 

 which is to produce, comparatively, nothing except 

 minerals and the precious metals, and whose pursuits 



