PROCEEDINGS OP NINETEENTH FRUIT GROWERS' CONVENTION. 53 



committee to go there and make a demand, and then see what they will 

 do. The remarks that have been made here by Mr. Berwick, in regard 

 to the rapid strides which the Argentine Republic has been making, are 

 very interesting. I have been Government statistician in Tulare County 

 for the last three years, and it brings me in close communion with the 

 Department of Agriculture at Washington. There were weekly bulletins 

 issued, and also monthly ones, and the crop conditions that prevailed 

 throughout the United States could be gleaned from the bulletins issued 

 from that department. Latterly, there have been a great many state- 

 ments in regard to the products of California. The intimation in these 

 inquiries was to the effect that California was stubbornly pursuing a 

 system that would eventually bring us into a condition of bankruptcy. 

 I presume the other Government statisticians throughout the State 

 received the same bulletins that I speak about. 



For your information, I will now state to you under what conditions 

 the Argentine Republic has become such a formidable competitor with 

 California in such a short time. You have heard Mr. Berwick state 

 that a few years ago he was informed by his geography that California 

 was a hide and tallow country. The Argentine Republic was in the 

 same business within the memory of the youngest man here in this 

 audience. It is now stated in the last bulletin issued from the Agri- 

 cultural Department at Washington that they are producing wheat in 

 the Argentine Republic for $2 20 a quarter, sacked and delivered in 

 Buenos Ayres ready for shipment. Now, you all may not be familiar 

 as to what a quarter of wheat is. A quarter of wheat is eight bushels. 

 In the Argentine Republic they can produce wheat, and deliver it ready 

 for shipment, for 27-§ cents a bushel. Can you find any one who is 

 engaged in agricultural pursuits in California to do it? If you can, say 

 it. I have told the Agricultural Department that it cannot be done in 

 California. Now, this is the way it is done. They have taken the 

 congested population of Italy, and have brought them under the 

 padrone system of labor, and they pay them in the currency of that 

 country, paper money, which is at a discount of 33-g per cent, while 

 they sell their wheat for gold; so, therefore, they pay for their labor in 

 depreciated currency. In the productiveness of the soil, it behooves us 

 to consider this rival in the production of wheat, occupying as they do 

 the same degree of latitude south as we do north. With the claim 

 prevailing that they will soon rival us in the production of fruit, it 

 behooves us to consider better modes of transportation to reach the 

 markets of the world, and I can conceive of none better for us to con- 

 sider than the one pointed out here by Mr. Berwick. Statistics show 

 that every day there leaves Buenos Ayres for France five steamships 

 loaded with refrigerated beef. 



The building of this canal would lead to a better system of transporta- 

 tion, and assist in the building up of California. How much intelligence 

 does it require to raise and harvest a sack of wheat? They have our 

 machinery; they have the land, and they pay for their labor in depre- 

 ciated currency. They raised 100,000,000 bushels in the last year, and 

 I think it is nearer 113,000,000 bushels. Will they not rival us in our 

 fruit industry, as is alleged, with the same climatic conditions? 



I am in favor of this resolution, and sincerely hope that there is 

 nothing in the way of its adoption. We should urge our Congressmen in 



