94 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



as great. It gave a new objective in the building of 

 a permanent state to those who had come for personal 

 enrichment alone. It opened a greater field for the 

 high average intelligence, daring, initiative and 

 resourcefulness. Mining lifted California out of the 

 inertia and hopelessness of the preceding regime. 

 Agriculture, by what it achieves and by what it 

 inspires and provides for, still holds California 

 aloft. 



Of course the fact should not be concealed that 

 California mining and farming have not always 

 sidled against each other in mutuality and recipro- 

 cation. Sharp issues have arisen which aroused con- 

 flicts engendering much ill feeling. The most serious 

 was the injury to navigable streams and the ruin of 

 river bottom lands by deep deposits of debris from 

 hydraulic mining which is now prohibited by law 

 wherever such streams are within reach of mining 

 wastes. Another problem, still pending solution, is 

 the destruction of considerable areas of river bottom 

 land by a system of dredge-mining which lifts good 

 land from the surface to a depth of many feet, trans- 

 forming a part of the landscape from a stretch of 

 orchards and meadows into a desolate unproductive 

 welter of cobble stones and coarse gravel. The dredge 

 miners buy at high prices the land they desire and 

 thus far have the undisturbed right to destroy it. As 

 the gold product by dredging has averaged for a 

 number of years upwards of seven million dollars 

 annually and is greater than all other forms of placer 

 mining combined, the permanent ruin of large areas 



