102 Fruit Fanning for Profit in Calif or7iia, 



meiit of the mines to that extent. It indicates plainly 

 that so much has been extracted and that that much 

 less remains. Nor is it an industry which enhances 

 skill or encourages the productive capacity of a people. 

 On the other hand, the creation of ten millions in the 

 way of agricultural product or manufactures discloses a 

 capacity which of itself is a guaranty of a repetition of 

 the annual product in an increasing ratio. The con- 

 tinued production of wealth in the first instance is 

 dependent upon the existence of precious metals. In 

 the second instance, it shows a productive capacity 

 inherent in the character and habits of the people pro- 

 ducing it. Mines are easily exhausted by modern 

 me'bhods of extracting ores, but skill, industry, intel- 

 ligence and stability of character are inexhaustible, 

 because they are elements capable of constant augmen- 

 tation. An industrial prosperity founded upon fertility 

 of soils, clemency of climate, the skill and intelligence 

 of a people, the stability of personal character and 

 government, may be depended upon, because all these 

 things may have indefinite perpetuation. If upon such 

 a basis, the mining for precious metals stands related 

 as incidental, then it may be a valuable adjunct, sup- 

 plementing symmetrical development. But to reverse 

 this order, and found a commonwealth upon the ephe- 

 merous industry of extracting precious metals, when, as 

 indicated, the very prosecution of the industry is itself 

 a process of impoverishment, offers no guaranty of 

 stability. Mining for precious metals then cannot 

 become the basis or standing industry in any country. 



Looking from this field of original enterprise to later 

 industrial development in California, we find at last in 



