PROCEEDINGS OP THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 225 



and so all the waterways which facilitate traffic east of the Rocky 

 Mountains, as well as our own San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, 

 should be improved at the very earliest possible time. We can hardly 

 conceive of the traffic which would, result from such improvement in 

 the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys as this project contemplates. 

 The officers of this commission, who have studied the matter very care- 

 fully, report that in tins great inland valley there will be recovered 

 fertile acres enough to support thirty millions of people in comfort, even 

 in luxury, so great are the possibilities of such improvement as this 

 national plan proposes. And moreover, the incidental benefits to come 

 from this are great almost beyond conception. The water which can 

 be stored in times of flood in these reservoirs, which incidentally will 

 protect from overflow the fertile lands below, is sufficient to produce 

 a revenue, at a lower rate than has ever been given to California users, 

 from the sale of electric power, of one billion dollars per year. Just 

 think of that! And it is cheap power that most promotes rapid im- 

 provement and settlement of any country. Give us cheap power as 

 well as cheap transportation and we can beat the world in manufacture. 



In California especially rests another advantage which is found 

 nowhere else in all the United States where it is proposed to apply this 

 system of reclamation. We have here a climate which is so favorable 

 to production that we can easily produce two or three times as much 

 from the lands reclaimed from flood as in any other portion in which it 

 is proposed to operate. So that here is another reason why California 

 is very likely to receive the first attention when this great plan shall 

 be brought well under way. 



Now, what is our duty in connection with this? This is not going to 

 be done unless the American people get behind it and demand that it 

 shall be done; and so great are our interests here in California, essen- 

 tially so great, that it demands that all California shall get behind this 

 whole movement and back it; not that we shall start it and ask that 

 our particular job shall be undertaken first, but that our people shaJl 

 be made to understand the great importance of it all and that we shall 

 be present at every convention where it is possible to influence public 

 opinion, to spread the intelligence concerning this plan and to show 

 that California is united in supporting it. This is inaugurating a 

 new era for California. Heretofore it has been the Sacramento Valley 

 against the San Joaquin, the cities against the country, and southern 

 California' against the north. This is a plan big enough to appeal to 

 all, to bring the cordial support of southern California to this plan; all 

 California should spring forward to its advocacy, because southern 

 California can not be great unless this great interior valley be developed, 

 unless millions shall be induced to come here. California, of which we 

 are so proud, has lagged behind in the development of the United 

 15— FGC 



