16 



^vas the value of bribe money to create and aid a host of rascal- 

 ly franchises, yearly springing up from San Diego to Siskiyou, 

 from the Sierra to the Pacific. 



*' Farmers and mechanics, protect your own interests — those 

 interests which contribute so largely to the wealth and inde- 

 pendence of nations. Elect, as it is in your power to do, legis- 

 lators who can comprehend the interests of Agriculture and 

 Manufactures, and who will honestly protect them." 



With all these appliances and facilities for usefulness, well 

 managed, the published reports of the transactions of the So- 

 ciety would become most interesting and authentic exponents 

 of the agricultural capacities, the mineral wealth, the manufac- 

 turing enterprise and the general resources of the State. Dis- 

 tributed among our own people, they would furnish constant in- 

 centives and valuable guides to improvement. Distributed in 

 the Atlantic States and in the rich and populous countries of 

 the eastern continent, they would serve as the most economical 

 and effective agents to attract immigration to our State that 

 could possibly be employed. Teach the skilled cultivator of the 

 vine and the experienced manufacturer of wine, in the agricul- 

 tural portions of Germany, France, Italy and otherold wine-grow- 

 ing countries, that the wine crop has never proved a failure in 

 California since its first introduction by the priests, 150 years 

 ago — that owing to the peculiar adaptation of the soil and cli- 

 mate of our State to the growth of the vine, and the average 

 annual product per acre, here, under good cultivation, is six 

 hundred gallons, while that of the German States and France is 

 not over one hundred and seventy-five, and that of Italy— the 

 best wine-producing country in the world outside of California 

 — is less than lour hundred and fifty gallons. Teach them that 

 there is in California over twenty millions of acres of the very 

 best of land for vineyards, and that each head of a family can 

 become tlie owner of one hundred and sixty acres of the same, 

 by coming here and settling upon and improving it — and will 

 not such information, rendered authentic by our oflicial reports, 

 turn their heads towards California ? Will they remain longer 

 than necessity compels them in their own country, where but 

 fiew of them have any interest in the soil and can obtain but a 

 poor subsistence as the reward of their daily labors ? Teach 

 these facts to foreign capitalists, and enterprising and skillful 

 manufacturers, and they, also, will seek our shores for the profit- 

 able investment of their means, and a more adequate return for 

 their enterprise and skill. We should soon have springing up 

 in the various favorable localities in our State extensive wine- 

 cellars, the owners of which would purchase the grape or must 

 from the producer, and after subjecting it to careful and skillful 

 treatment for the proper length of time necessary to convert in- 

 to an article of that sujperior quality rendered susceptible by 



