18 



the Southern States, from §62 to $63 per one hundred pounds. 

 The experiment will be thoroughly tested in that county this 

 year. By experiments extending through a series of years in va- 

 rious parts of our State, it is conclusively proved that raisins, 

 figs, almonds, prunes, olives, all articles of commerce, and con- 

 sequently not liable to overstock any market, can be produced 

 here in equal perfection and greater abundance than in any 

 other part of the world. In a word, to sum up the foregoing 

 statements, we may say we know we have within our borders 

 the elements of greatness and prosperity equal, if not superior, 

 to those of any other State in the Union. Then, what do we 

 lack ? what do we need ? The answer most emphatically is, la- 

 bor and capital. We cannot attain mi^erial greatness or jjros- 

 per well without these — without both ; and capital for invest- 

 ment in our material resources will not, for obvious reasons, 

 23rAcede labor, it would follow. Then labor is the first great ne- 

 cessity. And how shall Ave obtain it ? The General G-overn- 

 nient, through agents and the distribution ot favorable informa- 

 tion, is wiselv and successfullv exerting her means and energies 

 to induce emigration to the United States. According to the re- 

 port of the ]SJ^ew York Commissioners of Immigration, the num- 

 ber of immigrants that arrived at that port during the eleven 

 months ending the 30th of ^S^ovember, 1863, was 146,519, against 

 76,306 during 1862 — showing an increase in one year of nearly 

 fifty per cent, from extra exertion. But does the Pacific coast 

 or California receive any portion of that immigration, or any 

 immediate benefit from it ? Yeiy little, if any at all. The mo- 

 ment the new comer sets foot on shore at i^ew York or any 

 other eastern port he is hurried off to Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, 

 or some other new State east of the Eocky Mountains, but never 

 to California ; hence, those States, with far less natural advan- 

 tages, except as to convenient location for immigration, outstrip 

 us in the race to wealth and general prosperit}'. The Pacific 

 Eailroad will, when finished, to a certain extent remove this bar- 

 rier which now isolates us from the great center of our country's 

 population. But till that time California must work out the 

 problem of increasing her labor and capital, and of developing 

 her own resources herself Let California bestir herself, if she 

 would not fall back from her present relative position among 

 her sister States. Let her make independent and extra exer- 

 tions to induce a tide of immigration to set in toward her shores 

 before that great field for enterprise and improvement is opened 

 up in the Southern States, to attract and hold the tide from her. 

 Let her send out, through the Golden Gate, such a flood of reli- 

 able information in regard to her unequaled productions, her in- 

 exhaustible resources and capacities, to those great beehives of 

 industr}' in the Old World as will cause a Hvely swarming out 

 of their families of workers, so intent upon securing the uu- 



