ECONOMIC COMMUNICATION THE EQUIVALENT OF PHYSICAL CONTI- 



, GUITY. 



Since the birth of this State, a great economic force has come into oper- 

 ation. I refer to cheap and rapid communication Economic transpor- 

 tation is the equivalent of physical contiguity. Let us make this plain. 

 Go back in the history of production and transportation a hundred years, 

 and you will find that the area of the profitable production of wheat did 

 not extend beyond twenty-four miles from the market for that cereal. The 

 profitable area of production for hay did not reach beyond ten miles of 

 its market. The area of the profitable production of garden stuff, being 

 a little higher class, had a somewhat greater extent. We may, however, 

 safely say that one hundred years ago, the area of the profitable produc- 

 tion of all the products of the soil did not exceed twenty-five miles by 

 land. The distance that food products could be carried by water was far 

 greater, but at the beginning of the present century, twenty-five miles 

 from navigable water constituted the area of profitable production for 

 nearly all species of field culture. Navigable waterways of the country 

 form channels of cheap communication ; hence cities and towns sprung 

 up along the banks of navigable rivers ; they were marts of exchange. 

 Beyond them a distance of twenty -five or thirty miles, the limit of profit- 

 able production was reached. The grazing interests were somewhat better 

 off. Fatted hogs could be driven from TOO to 150 miles. Cattle could be 

 driven profitably 500 miles, and horses were known to be taken over a 

 thousand miles. The advent of railroads came, and here around the city 

 in which you are holding this fair, garden vegetables are raised for 

 markets in Denver, Col., and St. Louis, Missouri even far beyond 

 these limits. Vegetables are raised in the vicinity of this city for the 

 New York market, 3,188 miles distant. Thus the radius of profitable 

 production sweeps over a limit of land transportation 3,000 miles long, 

 as against a length of twenty-five or thirty miles before the advent of 

 steam transportation by railroad on land and steam navigation on the 

 ocean. We shipped from California in 1880, 2,880,000 pounds of 

 garden vegetables. There has been a gradual and steady increase of 

 the shipments under this head until in 1888 they had risen to 32,000 ooo 

 pounds, or more than ten times the quantity shipped in 1880. The 

 same ratio of increase for eight years more would give us 300,000,000 

 .pounds, and who shall say that the proportionate increase will not be 

 realized ? 



This doctrine that economic communication may become the equiv- 

 alent of physical contiguity is the basis of all we hope for. It is 

 the most far reaching and significant factor in the future of California. 

 Three days ordinary wages in England will pay the cost of transportation 

 on one year's supply of breadstuffs for an individual, from the most inac- 

 cessible and distant wheat-producing zones of the world. The cost grows 

 less as you approach the seaboard. Breadstuffs are carried distances 

 which are practically unlimited along the commercial pathways of the 



