OF ALL THE LAWS NOW IN FORCE RELATING TO OR AFFECTING THE STATE other members temporary Chairman. They shall elect a Treasurer and Secretary, not mem

REPORT

OF THE

a warm sun in the morning induced an attack of rust in many localities, and the result was a decreased product and a low average quality.

STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE TO THE GOVERNOR. recently, was much injured in quality. In fact, the year was but a

To His Excellency George C. Perkins, Governor of California:

Then the farmers, as usual in this State, allowed the grain to stand till too ripe before cutting, and an additional loss was the result. The vintage of wine was below the average, but the quality was good. The wool clip did not come up in weight to the average of the past few years, but showed a continued improvement in quality. The fruit crop was below the average in quantity, and owing to the ravages of the codling moth, which has been introduced in our State quite medium one for production all round; but as the harvest time advanced, and autumn was succeeding summer, the dark cloud of depression and uncertainty that had hung over the country so long begun to break away in the cast, and the rays of hope and sunshine inspired hope in the minds of men. The financial affairs of the country assumed a more stable and promising aspect, and hope inspired confidence brought a revival of business and a general advance of prices.

DEAR SIR: In handing to you the Annual Report of the State Board of Agriculture, and the accompanying Transactions of the State Agricultural Society, we have reason to feel grateful to Providence for the favorable results of the past year's labors to the agriculturists Wheat appreciated in a short time from about $1 60 to $210 per of the State. The beginning of the year was most unfavorable, and cental. Wool, from 10 to 15 cents a pound, to 25 and 30 cents. Grapes did not promise well to the producers in scarcely any of the depart for wine, that had been dull and hardly salable at $10 and $12 per ments of agricultural industry. The rains of last winter were very ton, commanded $15 and $25 per ton. Hops, that could not be sold light in the first part of the season, and wet the soil down so little at 10 cents a pound, were in demand at 20 and 25 cents; and all other that the early sown grain on dry sown and summer fallowed land agricultural products advanced in proportion. Iron, lumber, coal, was considerably damaged by the succeeding long term of dry weather. general hardware, and all manufactured articles felt the general Nor was the soil sufficiently moistened to enable farmers to prosecute impulse and advanced in like ratio. General life and business sucplowing of land not summer fallowed till a time when the rainy sea- ceeded general stagnation; and the year that begun with the tide of son is generally nearly passed, and until it was late in the season to business at the lowest ebb, closed at flood tide, which promises to put wheat into the ground with hope that it would produce even a continue to flow on, bearing the business of the country on its crest medium crop. When the rains did come, they were so heavy and for at least some time to come. Our wheat crop turned out about continuous that another term of waiting became necessary before the 20,000,000 centals, worth at current advanced rates at least $40,000,000; soil could be cultivated and the seed sown and left in fair condition, of which we had exported by sea on the first of January-the end of Indeed, much wheat was sown on soil too wet and too cloddy to the first half of the harvest year-of flour, 234,881 barrels, worth inspire hope of a moderate yield, but, under the circumstances, to $1,238,230; of wheat, 7,669,993 centals, worth $13,467,340; combined wait longer would have been equivalent to abandoning the crop alto- value of export, $14,645,574. gether.

On the first of March last the prospects were anything but encour aging to the farmers of the State. That an average crop of wheat would be harvested was not generally believed, and the outlook did not warrant a hope that we would be able to obtain an average price for what we might have to export. The wine interest had hardly began to emerge from the depressed condition that it had been in for a decade of years. Wool was low-so low, in fact, that many sheep owners felt an anxiety to get their sheep off their hands at most any price, and could see nothing but a continual struggle with hard times in the future. Hops bore but a nominal price, and could not be disposed of except at ruinous figures.

Potatoes, beans, corn, and indeed nearly everything the farmer produced, was a drug in the markets of the State. Such were the farmer's prospects in the spring and early summer, and they did not improve much till the summer was well passed. The wheat crop turned out better than was expected at the time of seeding, but the yield was only middling. The early spring growth was rank and rapid, and at one time a heavy crop was indicated, but heavy dews at night and

Of barley we produced from six to seven million centals, and though this crop is principally used at home, we had exported on January first, 411,145 centals, of a value of $594,252.

Of wool, we sheared in the year 46,137,720 pounds, and, including receipts from Oregon, we have exported 50,705,078 pounds, at a valuc of $9,000,000. Of wine, we have made from six to seven million gallons, worth in our own markets to-day, $2,000,000.

Of butter, we have produced considerably above the needs for home consumption, and there was during the year received, at the City of San Francisco alone, 8,337,100 pounds. We also produce cheese in excess of home consumption; the receipts at San Francisco for the past year were 4,218,400 pounds.

Of hops, we had exported by sea on January first, 133,963 pounds, at a value of $20,139. The overland export was considerably larger. The production of raisins in our State is a rapidly growing and a satisfactorily paying industry--the quality of the fruit produced by those best skilled in the business being equal to the best imported.

2

At the rate of increase in production that has taken place within the in the best of condition, and the prospect for an extraordinary wheat past few years, we will soon supply all we will need for home con crop is unusually good. The fruit, wine, wool, and other crops are sumption, and with our immense resources in this direction, we may equally promising, and prospects for good prices are very flattering in the near future supply the markets of the world. The advance for all that the farmers may produce. made within the past few years in the production of citrous and One of the truest things that can be said of our State is, that when other semi-tropical fruits have been most gratifying. From a smal agriculture prospers all other industries prosper. Hence the importbeginning in a limited section of the State, to which it was till lately ance of fostering in every way practical that knowledge which leads supposed the culture must be confined by climatic influences, the to agricultural skill and agricultural success, and consequently to production of these fruits has spread into almost every county in the success in every other department of the State's industries. State, and practical experience has demonstrated not only the prac It is with pleasure we contemplate the businesslike view the framers ticability of an extended culture, but the profitableness of the same of our recently adopted Constitution took of the question of agricultWe have learned that oranges ripen earlier in central than in south. ural and industrial education, and the plain manner in which they ern California, and that those grown in any section of the State, if of expressed that view when they declared that "the Legislature shall good kinds, are equal, and superior in many respects, to those grown encourage, by all suitable means, the promotion of intellectual, scienin the South Atlantic or Gulf States, or the West India Isles. One tific, moral, and agricultural education." point of superiority is their keeping quality, giving to them a com The industrial classes have taken new courage and imbibed new mercial value above any produced in any other part of the world faith in consequence of the liberal views expressed in the first inauWith the advantages we possess in the extended season of ripening gural of your Excellency on the subjects of agricultural and general and the superior keeping qualities, we will be able, in a compara industrial education and improvement. tively short period of time, to check and stop importations from foreign countries to the United States, and practically monopolize this valuable trade.

We feel that we are living in an age of practical advancement, and that the material industries of our State are just entering upon an era of prosperity heretofore unknown. It rests with the present Legislature to give a wise direction to the impulses which a combination of favorable circumstances has inspired, with reference to the future material prosperity of our State.

The past and the present winters have both been among the coldest ever experienced in the State, and yet but very little damage has been done by the frost in any section of the State to the orange and lemon trees, even the smallest and youngest, except where they had It is incumbent upon our lawmakers to determine whether labor been injudiciously irrigated too late in the season, thus keeping the shall find within our State profitable employment in the developtrees in a rapidly growing condition, and giving them no time to ment of our known and latent resources, or whether it shall go about mature their wood before they were exposed to our severest weather the country begging bread. Let capital be shown where it may be Many of the ornamental and some of the fruit-bearing palms have safely and profitably invested, and skill and enterprise directed where been proven of sufficient hardiness to withstand the severest winters they may reasonably expect a fair reward for their exertions, and of our interior valleys, and their introduction to many of our private labor will not go unemployed or unremunerated. No State in the grounds adds greatly to the beauty and attractiveness of the same, Union, or the world, presents to-day better opportunities for the and to the semi-tropical air of our towns and cities. If our public investment of millions in paying enterprises or legitimate business parks and State grounds were more generally planted with a mixture operations. No State can present better natural inducements to the of the orange, lemon, and palms, in addition to the usual evergreen small farmer, wine or fruit grower, with a few hundred dollars as a and deciduous ornamental trees, they would blend an appearance of stake to begin with, and around which to accumulate a competency the useful and the ornamental, and add very much to their value, for a rainy day, than does California at this time. There is no State indicating the special superiority of our climate. We hold that the in the Union, or the world, to-day, in which the natural conditions public grounds under care of the State should at least be kept abreast are so favorable to accumulations of means by the laboring man or with the advanced lessons of practical culture and private enterprise. laboring woman, with habits of industry and frugality. The State Capitol grounds, for instance, should convey to our own The opportunities of obtaining land at small cost, and building citizens, and to strangers visiting them, the possibilities of our soil thereon good and pleasant homes, are unexcelled. The cost of living and climate in the most extended arboriculture and ornamentation, is small compared to the wages of well directed and persevering bringing together the best specimens of trees and shrubs from the exertion. But there is a great lack of correct information as to the sunny South and the freezing North, and so combining and alter natural advantages and enviable opportunities to be found within nating them as to produce the most charming effects the highest our borders for the capitalist, the man of small means, and the baredegree of success in natural landscape picturing. The successful handed laborer. landscape gardener is an artist in the highest sense of that word. We have had our Bureaus of Information, and our Free Labor Our State Capitol grounds should present a picture worthy of the best Exchanges, but they have, as a general thing, been ephemeral instiartist we have among us. Nothing short of this should satisfy its tutions, supported and conducted for special purposes and personal managers or the people. gain. Let these be supplanted by permanent institutions, organized under State control and management, and charged by the State with the collection and dissemination of correct and official information in regard to our many and varied resources and material industries.

The present winter has been one of the most favorable ever known in the State for seeding, and the largest area ever known is now in wheat, and a very much larger proportion than usual has been put in

Let them be required to gather and publish, in convenient form, not

only general facts and statistics relating to the natural resources and every well conducted church in the State recognizes the importance advantages of the State, such as the temperatures of the climate, the of maintaining the office and paying for the services of an usher, richness and peculiarities of the soil, the annual rainfall, the water whose duties are to recognize strangers as they enter the building or courses and navigation, the distribution and facilities of obtaining church, to welcome and present them with a programme of the enterand growing timber, etc., but the artificial improvements and advan tainment, or subject of discourse, to conduct them to seats or pews, tages, such as public roads, post-offices, schools, churches, markets and seat them and bid them to be comfortable and at home. But railroads, etc., showing the general advancement of the evidences of this great State of ours, with an area sufficient for an empire, with an enlightened civilization. Let them be required to collect also resources more abundant, more varied, and more widely dissemifrom cach general subdivision of the State-as, for instance, the Sac nated, and less known, than any equal section of the Union, or the ramento Valley, the San Joaquin Valley, the coast counties, the foot world, has never yet recognized the necessity or importance of such hill counties, the bay counties, and southern California-the promi- an officer and charged with the duties indicated and furnished with nent and peculiar natural advantages, resources, and capabilities of the means of performing them.

each locality or section, the adaptabilities and capabilities of the Until the State does recognize such necessity, and does provide for soils and climates for the production of the different kinds of agri- such an office, and charge it with the performance of such duties, our cultural, horticultural, and vinicultural products, stock raising, etc.; natural resources will remain undeveloped, our natural advantages the necessities or non-necessities for irrigation, and the facilities and will continue unknown, our industries will lag, enterprise and skill cost of such irrigation when needed; the routes and modes and cost will be discouraged, capital will remain idle or be invested elseof travel to such localities from well known points in the State, as where, labor will go unemployed and unpaid, and our streets and San Francisco and Sacramento; the markets of each locality, and the highways will be lined with robbers, tramps, and beggars. facilities and cost of transportation to and from the same; the extent The State Agricultural Society has now been in existence as a vollocation, and description of public lands still subject to entry, home untary institution, organized and working under the laws of the stead, or purchase in each section, under public laws; the location of State, but not under the exclusive management and control thereof, the public land offices for each section, and all other matters and over a quarter of a century. It was the first institution established things necessary for strangers entering the State in pursuit of busi. in the State for the fostering of practical and industrial education, ness and homes to know, in order to save time and expenses, and the for the encouragement of immigration, and the promotion of the liability to be deceived and defrauded by sharps and speculators; productive industries. It has been supported mostly from resources the cost of private lands of different kinds and qualities in cach sec of its own creation and by private enterprise and donations, receivtion, and the average product and value thereof of such lands; the ing comparatively but little aid from the State. It has proved itself cost of lumber and fencing material, and the laws in reference to one of the most useful institutions of the Pacific Coast. It has been at fencing, and such other matters as will answer all practical and per all times foremost in the development of the State's varied resources, tinent questions of practical men desirous of settling in the State, or the introduction and encouragement of new and valuable industries, any particular section thereof. in disseminating correct and reliable information among our own people and abroad regarding these resources and industries, and inducing the best classes of immigrants to come and take up land It has taken the lead in encouraging and make homes among us. the introduction and breeding of good stock of all kinds in the State, and to its efforts in this direction the high reputation the State now bears as a stock breeding section of the Union is mainly due. All these things it has accomplished under voluntary or private management.

An institution charged with the important offices and duties above enumerated, would be greatly assisted in the efficient discharge of those duties, and its services to the State and to its patrons would be greatly enhanced and its ability for the development of the material industries and the direction of labor augmented, if, in addition to these offices and duties, the same institution have charge and management of the general annual exposition of all the material products of the State.

It would then become possible and practical for those who collect and publish all classes of information in regard to our resources and advantages to present in tangible form each year a public demonstration of the correctness, reliability, and value of the information so collected and published by them.

The products from each section of the State should be grouped together in such exposition so as to present the general character istics, capabilities, and resources of each section in contrast with those of the others, thus to enable the observers and special searchers for information, bearing in mind the facts and statistics of each sec tion, collected and published as suggested, to determine for them selves which section they would choose in which to engage in busi

ness and make homes for themselves and families.

Every theater, or place of amusement or entertainment, and even

in

When the State has seen fit to assist the Society by appropriations, it has always used the moneys so received in a judicious and prudential manner and satisfactorily to the donor; and by the impulses it has given the productive industries, has returned to the State quadruple value received, in the form of increased taxable property and enhanced revenues.

Satisfied with the past labors and services of the Society, and proud of its honorable and useful record and good name, the present Board of Directors of the Society would have been willing and even glad to have had it remain under the old organization and management; but the framers of the State Constitution, under which we are now working, determined and provided that the Society should, in the future, depend entirely upon its own resources for the means necessary to continue its extensive and valuable work, or place itself under the exclusive management and control of the State.