266 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



1859. "Thus it is seen/' said John Bidwell in that 

 year, "that as we become able to supply ourselves 

 with necessaries the importation of them declines." 

 And during the next few years this truth became 

 more apparent and in less than a decade H. D. Dunn 

 wrote in 1867 : "With the exception of a compara- 

 tively small quantity of salt pork, hams and sides, 

 mostly imported in brine from the Atlantic ports, 

 the domestic production supplies the home demand. 

 But a few years will pass before importations will 

 cease entirely and California become a large exporter 

 of salted and cured meats to countries on the Pacific 

 and to the interior." 



In the latter sixties the war contracts ceased and 

 the pork packers of the Central West had too much 

 product and the overland railway opened. In 1867 

 Holden said, in his address at the Stockton fair : 

 "Mr. Hancock, of Cragin & Co., Chicago, who was 

 here recently, told me his firm, on taking stock a 

 year ago, had on hand 71,000 barrels of pork worth 

 $3,000,000 and bacon worth $500,000. That is the 

 way our Chicago neighbors do business I" 



It apparently occurred to Holden that the words 

 of the enterprising Hancock were an inspiring incen- 

 tive to local production, but Hancock was perhaps 

 only the first of the procession of tired Chicago 

 packers who have come to California since that time 

 for recreation and have amused themselves with 

 good strokes of business. Some of them have built 

 up good local packing establishments and have been 

 a great help in getting the California meat industry 



