6 



;il, inn stared her in the luce ? It was the lack of bacon and corn 

 as well as the force of our bullets that gave us the victory. It 

 was the power we held to supply that mighty army with bread, 

 combined with the bone and sinew of our brave farmer boys that 

 made the North invincible. What could we have done without 

 our railroads ? and what interest more than any other built our 

 railroads ? Agriculture and her associate interests, without which 

 they could not be supported to-day. 



Look at California. A little more than twenty short years have 

 passed since the discovery of her gold. For ten years]she poured 

 her vast treasures into the lap of the world and still she was poor 

 in every qualification that makes a state great and prosperous. 

 She was a non-producer of the great staples. She had but little 

 agriculture with a rich virgin soil and the finest climate on the 

 continent. She had no manufactures and consequently but little 

 commerce. She was poor indeed with all her gold. She saw her 

 fault and wisely went to work to correct it. 



She turned her attention to agriculture and manufactures and 

 to-day she holds an important position among the States. 



There are two periods in the history of our country worthy of 

 note. The first was the action of England towards her colonies 

 previous to the revolution. She held them in such absolute sub- 

 jection that beside the common domestic industry and the ordina- 

 ry mechanical employments no kind of manufacturing was allow- 

 ed. In 1750 a manufactory of hats in Massachusetts drew the 

 attention and excited the jealousy of Parliament. All colonial 

 manufactories were declared to be common nuisances, not except- 

 ing even forges; in a country possessing in abundance every ele- 

 ment for the manufacture of iron. In 1770 the great Chatham, 

 alarmed by the first manufacturing attempts of New England, de- 

 clared that the colonies ought not to be allowed to manufacture 

 so much as a hob-nail. 



The monopoly of manufacturing industry by the mother coun- 

 try was one of the principal causes of the American Revolution. 



Freed from the trammels which had been imposed upon them, 

 and reduced consequently to their own resources for the supply 

 of their wants, the United States found during the war that man- 

 ufactures of every kind had received a remarkable impulse and 

 that agriculture was deriving from J them such benefits that the 

 value id' the soil, as well as the wages of labor, were largely in- 



