450 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



body can so safely be trusted to get all the gold out of a tract 

 of land as the fee-simple owner of it. 



The federal government has refused to sell the mineral 

 lands to the state, and the surveyor-general has instructed 

 his deputies not to " sectionize" the land in the mineral dis- 

 tricts, or within several miles of where any miners are at w^ork. 

 The truth is, that a large part of the land in the mining re- 

 gion contains so little gold that it never can pay the miner, but 

 is well suited for agricultural and horticultural purposes. Cali- 

 fornians confidently expect that some of the finest fruits and 

 wines of our state — and that is as much as to say of the whole 

 world — will be produced in the mining counties, within five 

 years from the present time ; and the government should pur- 

 sue such a policy as will encourage the occupation and cultiva- 

 tion of all the land suitable for such purposes. 



If the sale were once determined upon, undoubtedly difii- 

 culties would arise as to the manner of carr^-ing it into execu- 

 tion ; but these w-ould be of little import, as compared with 

 the evils caused by the present system. The whole mineral 

 district should be surveyed at once, and sold in lots to persons 

 w^ho will live on, or w^ork them, varying in size, according 

 to location and supposed mineral wealth, from one hundred 

 and sixty to eighty, forty, twenty, ten, five, two and a half, 

 and one and a quarter acres. Perhaps it would be advisable 

 to grant at first no lots where many miners may be at work 

 within a small space. Large lots of ten, twenty, and forty 

 acres, now unoccupied, and which w^ould long remain unoccu- 

 pied under the present system, would find abundant buyers 

 should the government propose to grant the fee-simple. 



The offer of the mineral lands of the state, comprising about 

 10,000,000 acres, for sale, would present one of the greatest op- 

 portunities in the world for large numbers to secure great and 

 certain wealth at a small immediate outlay ; and not only every 

 man now in the country, but every one who has been here, 

 w^ould exert himself to the utmost to b.ecome the owner of a 

 tract of land, the mines of which would probably clothe him 



