TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 85 



Convention since I became President of the first Board of Horticul- 

 ture — we have been honored by the presence of the Chief Executive of 

 the State. It does me great pleasure to introduce to you this morning 

 Dr. George C. Pardee, Governor of California. 



ADDRESS BY GOVERNOR GEORGE C. PARDEE. 



The chairman of this meeting, who is also Horticultural Commissioner 

 of this State, has been good enough at various times to come into my office 

 at the State Capitol and endeavor to discuss with me matters which are 

 of the greatest importance to you and therefore to this State. I sa^^ " en- 

 deavor to discuss," for the reason that the discussion is altogether one- 

 sided, I knowing very little or nothing of the matter, and he being, as 

 it were, a past master in the art; but I find that there are various mat- 

 ters and various problems which should receive, and will receive, that 

 due attention from the people of this State and from the government of 

 this State which their magnitude deserves. The question of transporta- 

 tion seems to me, as far as one can judge who is so far outside the pale 

 as I, to be of the utmost importance to you. We have now traversing 

 the State two great railroad systems, both clogged, each utterly unable 

 to take care of the business which California now offers them. Instead 

 of taking your products and the products of your brethren in this horti- 

 cultural business quickly to the markets where you desire them to go, a 

 length of time for that purpose is required that practically takes from 

 them the value that should be yours. The question of pests upon your 

 vines and fruit trees I assure you is one which is receiving the full 

 attention of this State. We feel that anything which will militate in 

 any way against the success of your endeavors and your business is 

 doing an injury to this State, which the State itself should do every- 

 thing to work against. Therefore, gentlemen of the Convention, I wish 

 to assure you that the government of this State is alive to the diffi- 

 culties of the situation that you are facing and is willing, aye, is glad, 

 welcomes the opportunity, to do whatever lies in its power to forward 

 your business and to make your ventures more profitable. (Applause.) 



Time was, almost within the memory of him who now stands before 

 you, when California's wealth was confined entirely to the products of 

 her mines; when her soil was considered incapable of supplying even 

 the wants of those who toiled to bring forth to the light of day the 

 golden treasures that nature, working in the slow revolving lapse of 

 countless centuries, had laid safely down in California's apparently 

 sterile soil. Our rainless summers and our snowless winters were not 

 regarded as favoring the art of the husbandman by those who early 

 came to California's far-off land, lured by the tales of our El Dorado 

 just discovered. Even Webster, one of the greatest men this nation 



