OBSERVATIONS 



ON 



EASTERN FARMERS AND EASTERN FAIRS. 



To His Excellency, GEO. C. PARDEE, 



Governor of California, 



DEAR SIR: It was your pleasure to appoint the undersigned a 

 delegate from this State to the Farmers' National Congress, which held 

 its meeting this year from the 9th to the 12th of October, inclusive, in 

 the city of Bock Island, State of Illinois. This Congress was attended 

 by more than seven hundred registered delegates, representing a large 

 majority of the states of the Union, besides about three hundred farmers 

 who came in from near-by localities to listen to the proceedings. The 

 delegates were generally representative men in their calling, and among 

 those who contributed papers were some of the most distinguished 

 specialists in America in the line of agricultural pursuits. 



I became impressed with the general aims and wants of the Eastern 

 farmer, which on many important subjects harmonize with the aims 

 and wants of the farmer in the West, Markets, transportation, water 

 navigation, fertilization, postal facilities, agricultural education, seed 

 selection, dairying, stock breeding, etc., are subjects that interest all 

 farmers in all parts of the country, but where the Pacific Coast farmer 

 and the Eastern farmer would divide would be on the subjects of 

 irrigation, methods of cultivation, and the character of products likely 

 to prove most profitable. It may be mentioned though that the states 

 bordering the west bank of the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountain 

 states, as well as those of the Southwest, are becoming keenly alive to 

 the importance of irrigation. 



Horticulture, the great subject with us, occupied little attention of 

 the Congress. I became impressed also that the average farmer of 

 the Middle West gives more attention to the selection of his seed and the 

 improving of his live, stock, horses, cattle, hogs, and sheep, than does 

 the average California farmer, and the deep interest the Eastern 

 farmer manifests in movements for improving the facilities for agri- 

 cultural education is quite apparent. Every farmer, almost, worthy of 

 the name, seems to be impressed with the importance of having his 

 sons know something of the science of farming, while farmers' wives 

 seem to be just as anxious that their daughters shall know something 



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