166 HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. 



will enable them to purchase, at any cost, whatever 

 may be necessary for their purposes. 



" It is difficult to imagine or calculate the effect 

 which will be produced on all the industrial pursuits 

 of the people of the Old States of the Union, by 

 this withdrawal from them of half a million of pro- 

 ducers, who, in their new homes and new pursuits, 

 will give existence to a commerce almost equal in 

 value to our foreign trade. Let no one, therefore, 

 suppose he is not interested in the welfare of Cali- 

 fornia. As well may he believe his interests would 

 not be influenced by closing our ports and cutting off 

 intercourse with all the world. 



" The distance round Cape Horn is so great that 

 bread-stuffs and many other articles of food deterio- 

 rate, and many others are so perishable in their nature 

 that they would decay on the passage. This would 

 be the case particularly with all kinds of vegetables 

 and undried fruits. Until some more speedy mode 

 of communication shall be established by which pro- 

 duce can be transferred, the farmers and planters of 

 the old States will not realize the full value of this 

 new market on the Pacific. 



" Many other important interests will be kept 

 back, especially the consumption of coal. The 

 American steamers, now on that ocean, those on their 

 way there, and others shortly to be sent out, will con- 

 sume not far from one hundred thousand tons of coal 

 per annum. The scarcity of wood in California will 

 bring coal into general use as fuel, as soon as it can 

 be obtained at reasonable prices. Suppose there may 

 be, three years hence, forty thousand houses, which 

 shall consume five tons each per annum. This, with 

 the steamers, would be a consumption of three hundred 



