THE
INDUSTRIAL INTERESTS
7=
OF
CALIFORNIA:
BEING
A SERIES OF LETTERS
RELATING TO
OUR HOME MANUFACTURES, INDUSTRIAL LABOR, AGRI
CULTURAL PROGRESS AND MATERIAL INTERESTS.
BY AN OLD RESIDENT.
SAN FRANCISCO: -
PRINTED BY TOWNE & BACON, EXCELSIOR STEAM PRESSES,
No. 536 Clay Street, over Pacific Fruit Market,
18 6 2.
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OUR MATERIAL INTERESTS.
Our Material Interests Are we to have a Policy that will De                           velop them?
EDITOR BULLETIN: -For twelve years successive Legislatures
have left the aggregate result of their deliberations in our voluminous
statutes. In all this mass of laws is the policy of the State unmistakably pointed out.  Has not a large portion of the time of those supposed
to be studying the State's best interest and advancement, been frittered
away in aimless and desultory law making, tending more to individual
gain than to the present and future prosperity of our State?
Thus at the end of twelve years' legislation, California is much like
a strong, well-found, richly laden ship, sailing with every fair wind upon
the ocean, but without any port of destination decided upon, the parties
in command being engaged in quarreling over the bullion on board,
thinking but little of the sales of the cargo entrusted to their charge,
where tl  landfall is to be made, or what their after-lading is to be,
while future repairs and portage bills are not thought of. The ship is
well manned and found at present; when the time of renovation and
short freights come, new men will be in command, and new men at the
helm, and their responsibility will have ceased.  California should have
a policy, marked and distinct as her coast line, and comprehensive to
embrace the variety of production in her agricultural and mining resources-a policy to which, however parties may differ in regard to our
national administration, all should conform.
The present Legislature, elected more for their devotion to the Federal Union than to party creed, have it in their power to map out a
course of action so publicly manifest to be beneficial to every interest
and source of prosperity in our State, that future legislative bodies will,
from public interest, be obliged to follow that line of State policy which
the present Legislature can with great propriety unanimously decide
upon. It is a point on which men of all parties can agree; one in
which no party, as things now are, should claim preference; one that no
party in power dare gainsay or abuse. Let those who have the State's
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interest decidedly at heart reflect for one moment on the isolation of our
State from other well-peopled countries, and from the States of our
own Union, and the necessity that we shall and must provide for our selves is apparent. Follow up the thought as to the best means, and
the value of judicious legislation that will guide our people into the pro duction of those articles which can be manufactured here, making to
them new sources of wealth and lessening the dependence of our State
on other States and nations, and achieving the best results of all legis lation, prosperity to our people; will be too apparent to need argument.
There is another point of view ill which this subject may be looked
at, and that is its financial effects. Our Constitution provides, perhaps
wisely, for a metallic currency for our State. Twelve years of expe rience shows us that although this system possesses much of good, there
are some evils connected with it. The probability is that had our early
legislators foreseen that in all our dealing with paper-money countries
the goods we purchase would cost us fifteen to twenty per cent. more
than they do those who buy with paper money and its accompanying
means of credits, that the rates of interest would remain as high as they
now do, and that our business currency should be so small in volume
that the sudden withdrawal of $500,000 or $800,000 from any unusual
cause should be felt in every business enterprise of the State, they
would have made such other enactments as would have kept more of
this life-blood to our prosperity within our borders. So great a drawback have these results been to our prosperity, that nothing but the
youthful energy of our population has kept them from being utterly disheartened. It is not sufficient to point at what they have done, and
say none have done more; for the business men of California possess
more energy of character, more readiness of resource, more elasticity
under difficulty and misfortune, than any army of business men of equal
numbers ever before enrolled under the banner of one State.
Had our early legislators, when they made a metallic currency our
basis of business, also taken the measures which would have soonest
rendered us independent of purchases of the paper-money States, then
would their scheme have been complete. From $25,000 to $50,000
per year spent in rewards to industrial enterprise would bythis time
have rendered us independent of three-fifths of our outside purchases,
doubled our taxable wealth, and saved to the State'the yearly outlay of
twenty-four of the forty millions of the cost of our purchases. We possess the power of production; we have the ingenuity and skill, and the
labor with which to manufacture. All that is necessary is for our State
to do what all other good governments have done, that is, cherish their
growth and progress in their infancy and incipient stages, until able to
go alone. Every new product or manufacture here is beset with difficulty in its early stage and growth; the value of capital and its demand is such as to keep the capitalists in the beaten track; the new
productions and manufactures are the fruits of the industry of the adventurous and the enterprising, and have not the support of capital until
their success is achieved.
But it is said, these things will all come in time-yes, in our children's
time, when they might just as well be in our own, and it may be sound
policy that we should not wait. If we review the business interests of 
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the State before the calamities of this deluge had fastened on them, a
very small proportion of them were in such financial prosperity that
change would not have been welcome. The second great interest of
the country, agriculture, was prostrate, and every business link connected with it was affected, except that of shipping. Proud as we were
of our cereal shipments, many of them were a loss to the State, in so
much taken from its fertility without remuneration to its producers.
Now that calamity is pressing on our resources, there is all the more
need that our people should be guided into these channels of business,
which will give more variety of employment, more scope of production
and less risk in the future. Such encouragement requires no outlay
from the State, and no increase of taxation. There is no call on the
treasury until the desired results are achieved, and a new source of
wealth and taxation added to our resources.
If we wish to invite immigration, how can we so well secure the mechanic and manufacturer?  If we wish to secure and make prosperous
those who are now here, how better provide new avenues to their industry? If we wish to build up and benefit our inland cities, how better
than by the encouragement of home manufactures? If we wish to cover
our valleys with railroads, what better inducement can we give to their
construction than the bulky freights of diversified agricultural production? If we desire to bring commerce to our ports, we have only to
produce freights for the ships.  If we would command money facilities,
we must buy of ourselves, not of others. If we would have employment for our people, it must be by the encouragement of home industries which will command capital investment. In fact, if California is
to be the great State we so fondly hope, if our commerce is to be the
first on the broad Pacific, and if we wish to see this greatness, we must
be wise in our own day and generation, and advance our State beyond
the mining, agricultural and pastoral point by adding home manufactures to the measure of our resources.
Let the present Legislature take a broad view of this important subject; make it a matter of legislative enactment and control; let the
people understand that no local clique or favoritism is to come between
them and the reward of their industry; give a liberal bonus, over a
term of years, for the production and manufacture of every article within
the compass of. our capabilities and wants: and in five years sueh results will be brought forth that in the prosperity of our' people the calamities of floods and bad legislation will be blotted from their memories.
What are Evidences of the Prosperity of the State?
EDITOR  BULLETIN -As your paper bears evidence of willingness
to encourage that element of newspaper life which is found in communications from its readers, possibly you will find room for mine, even if
I do not always agree with current thought or opinion.
In the general quiet of business throughout the State, which apears
somewhat like a rest after a fast race, it may do no harm to examine if
we have made all needful preparation to make a suecessful run through
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the next ten years of our course. If we look back over the past ten,
we will find a very large majority of those who started in the race of
business have dropped by the way. Merchants and mechanics, bankers and contractors, have alike, in many cases, given way to new men.
In the mines we find, in a majority of cases, that the pioneers have
gone to the wall, and in the agricultural districts, too many old farms
are cultivated by new men to make that branch of business an exception to the rest. We have no statistics by which to make comparison,
nor have we precedent from which data may be had for such comparison with other pioneer efforts, to see if our killed and wounded in the
battle of California business have exceeded or been less than the losses
made in building up other new countries, for no other country has been
built under similar circumstances, or with the same rapidity as this one.
Australia affords the only comparison, which, so far as it can be made,
appears favorable to Californian industrial initeres-ts.  If we judge by
the accumulations in the savings and loan societies, or by the daily investment in the real estate operations of our city, we must infer those
who labor and have been economical have been prosperous, to an
amount in strong contrast to those who have in past days furnished the
means, material and finance for this labor. Those who lend and those
who make ground rents their source of income have also prospered,
while in many cases those who have paid the lender and the rents have,*
been swept away in the same current of unsuccess which has overwhelmed the builders of the first mills, tunnels, roads and canals of the
miner, and the founders of the first farm and orchard improvements of
the State. Who can fairly say that it is their fault, where the changes
and growth of our State has been so rapid, that what the best business
sense of the community one year approved, has the next been condemned? We have seen wisdom fail and folly succeed; the earnings
of energy lost in depression, while other investments have made a tenfold increase from the absolute inertia of their owner. We have also
seen industry fail and idleness succeed, until in the complication of
these kaleidoscopic changes all rule and direction which governed our
former business life and judgment have in a manner been lost.
It would appear as if these sudden changes and anomalies of business are in a measure past, and that bur people are, with a quiet economy and careful wisdom, preparing for the state of things called for by
our change from the prosperous go-a-headitiveness of a new country
into the staid ways of an old State, where business profits are light and
competition certain. There are indications of a check in ambition and
enterprise; the profits to those who have started new undertakings have
not in all eases been such as to give encouragement to those whose
inclinations would lead them to make investments of capital in business
that requires a course of years to bring returns, and for the last few years
the gains of nearly all business, instead of being used in its extension,
have been devoted almost entirely to the accumulations of an interest
account-a business which, from its very nature, keeps its votary in a
beaten track and time-worn securities. Our city would continue to
grow and improve as the population of the State increased, even if that
population by their labor only each day worked out the necessaries of
life, for these necessaries would mainly pass over our wharves and
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docks and create business. Then our poor-rates and houses of refuge
would increase, our business profits would be small and infinitely subdivided. In that case, the growth of our city would be no criterion of
the prosperity of the State, nor would our own growth and prosperity
be like that which would ensue when the labor of our interior population was remunerative and prosperity reigned with them.
Let us make no mistake in what we deem evidence of our prosperity. Our city's interest is an increased population, and our State's
interest is in their having profitable and remunerative employment.
To do well, and keep our tide of progress at the flood, while we invite
and are eager for the one, we must provide the other. A large export
of gold would show' we are buying much that we might produce and
manufacture, and is not an indication of prosperity, unless accompalied with liberal profit to the miner, enabling him to make permanent
improvements in the State.  A large export of grain is no criterion of
tie prosperity of the farmer. If shipped at a loss to the producer it is
ir a measure a loss to the State, for it is so much taken from the prodtctiveness of the land without adequate return. True, so much is
sared to the State in capital, but the soil is reduced in value, for the
agriculturist has not the means to make it a return. Buildings erected
fron the proceeds of ground rent and interest account are not evidences
of Prosperity, if the payers of both rent and interest have been bankruped, for what we gain in buildings we lose more than double in the
lossof the energy, ambition and industry which contributed the means
to biild them.
To my mind, there are far more evidences of general progress in a
succesful foundery, machine shop, manufactory or farm, than in a huge
pile ~ brick and mortar which combines ten times their capital. When
the gins of successful business, which we know in their accumulation
kept )ther trades in motion, are directed to the improvement of our
city, Te may proudly point to it as an evidence of progress in our
State and it is a healthy indication of our future prosperity when investramnt takes this form, instead of the monthly compounded interest
accout. When the cargoes of our out-bound ships have remunerated
their Iroducers, so that the means are left with them for further investments to keep up our soil in its virgin richness of production, we will
have, tangible evidence of agricultural prosperity in their business
calls aC our city.
Butithe best evidence we could have of general progress and pros peritydn sure basis, will be when the loaning of money is not the best
busines in the State; when capital alone cannot accomplish more than
capita and industry combined; and the question for all who wish the
State 7ell to solve, is the best means present and prospective, to change
this at)maly of finance and business, which is the nightmare and fear
oppresing every busines energy of our State.
/, A Review of Present Business.
EDTOR BULLETIN:-The ready answer which would meet my
inquir of the last letter would be, " when our capital increases;" but
that Aen is a fearful bugbear to those who have dropped down a few 
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rounds in Fortune's ladder, or who are still at the bottom and desire to
climb up.  To my rnind, it can be hurried a little, so that our State
may not only be looked upon as desirable to the immigrant, but that
those who have expended the best years of their lives in making California what it is, may at least have an opportunity to reap some benefit from these exertions, which heretofore have in the main inured to
the capital, to the manufacturers, shippers and shipowners of other
countries, or the drones of our own hive. It is evident that the active
capital and currency of the State has not increased so fast as the wants
of business. Outside the largest cities there are no accumulations of
capital, and the whole trade and traffic of our State is made on a currency so limited that the withdrawal of $500,000 or $600,000 from
our circulation, from any cause but that of the regular steamer ship,
ments, is felt in every business circle of the State.
With a metallic bank whose capital has not been reckoned; with milions of monthly export, it should be in plenty for every want of business.  With a country possessing unlimited range of product, with n
earnest call for every manufacture and enterprise, with a commeie
opening to our view, expansive as the waters of the Pacific, it world
appear that capital should pay its holders the twelve to twenty-four )e,r
cent. demanded for it, and also pay the workers on this capital for tleir
expenditure of industry and energy in its use.  That we have reaaed
near the close of 1861 without either of these conditions being osolutely or even generally fulfilled, appears to me good argument that
there is something wrong-a screw loose in our business arrangemetsand that the fault somewhere rests with ourselves; that there is nothere
enough capital for business purposes remaining in the State, and that
business does not better pay. There has been no want, nor do wt lack
bankers in our community to assist industrious enterprise, full ofen at
their own cost. There has been much of individual liberality andmore
will, industry and energy expended than any equal population ha ever
shown. With its results, to the State and nation, every Calif:rnian
may feel an honest pride; with its results to individuals, he en but
regret.  We have fought and won a great battle of material antdsocial
progress, but owing to the amount of loss in killed and woundd, demoralized and crippled, an advance of our business army is n~ possible, unless a change is made in some of the features of the cam)aign.
That change, and how to arrive at it, is a problem that shoul now
occupy the mind and thought of every business man, and of evey real
friend of our State.
As in the last five years our export wealth has increased, arti ship
after ship has left our ports loaded with our own productions, tb capital saved the State seemed enough to place our finances on a easy
footing, and we saw apparently the elements of accumulating Health.
But the lessened call for merchandise in the agricultural countis, the
falling off of their payments to the city, and the accumulation oimortgages, and now of bankruptcies, unmistakably show that a large xport
trade must under ordinary circumstances be accompanied by a sale of
prices which are bringing ruin on this important interest of our state.
Although the good expected has been in part achieved, the eel that
accompanies it mnay take years to remedy.  Not alone the agricitural 
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counties, but the pastoral counties are, if possible, in still greater difficulty, for nothing but the wool clip appears during the last year to have
afforded a return to them. Thus we are deprived of a profitable business from each of those great interests of the State, without any immediate prospect of its quick recuperation. The difference between lib.
eral purchases and those of bare necessity from so large a portion of
our population, if continuous, must have a sensible effect on the business and real estate interests of our city.
With ourselves in the city, the chances and lessened profits of trade,
after driving many an ancient house from its foothold, are gradually
converting our importers into jobbers, and our jobbers into retailers,
until change is written on every feature of our business. Our community is small; our trade limited.  Any cause which affects a part is felt
at once on the whole.  We can afford to lose no part of our present
business. Whatever will be left is not sufficiently extensive that any
can be spared. The loss of $4,000,000 or $5,000,000 per year of business, which is about the difference that prosperous seasons makes in
the calls from the agricultural districts, will be felt through all our business and commerce. Families, and business men of all kinds, are
curtailing their expenditure, and thus exciting another great influence
on the profits of trade. The risks of speculative monopoly of any
article of daily consumption are so well known, that this class of business has lost its most ardent votaries; so that, altogether, merchants'
profits have been less, and risks, too, have been greater than they would
have been, if the bulk of their goods could have been of home growth
or manufacture with an open competition. Nor does the prospect of
the future open with better promise. The great railroad is far off, and
our distance from the other States so great that we will not feel even
the impulse which peace will give to every interest in their borders.
We are isolated and self-dependent, but it is clearly our own fault if
we continue to be vassals and interest-payers to them and other coulitries which our large import trade now compels us to be.
The Range of Present Occupation, and Necessity of Change.
EDITOR BULLETIN:-If we must wait for capital-if our State's
riches are to be from the gains of present business, or of future efforts
containing simply the same elements as the business of the last five
years, with only the same comparative growth of new undertakingwe may wait long for that accumulation which will give us means for
the building of our railroads and manufactories, the necessities of a firm
and stable growth. For, although the State's progress has been
marked, it has been with a waste of individual wealth and exertionalways excepting those who have worked for wages, for they have
gained, while in the main those who have paid them have lost. If this
conclusion is doubted, see how small a minority our successful merchants make of their total. See who were the prosperous boss mechanics, builders, and contractors of our early days, and see how few have,
firm foothold now.  Ride through our agricultural counties, and note
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how many farms can be bought for the cost of improvements placed on
them.  Examine the stock ranches and you will find that the depreciation has reached such depth that it is only checked by the value of the
hides and tallow of the herd. The original orchard investments have
nearly all changed hands; and our most substantial mining improvements have been the financial death of their originators. Then say if
this progression has not been dearly purchased.
We look in wonder at some monuments of antiquity, forgetting the
wear and tear of human brain and bone and muscle in the construction.
Let us not in our pride in our State's progress, forget what it has costthat the young men who composed our early army of emigration have
spent the best years of their lives in its accomplishment, and if many
have sunk by the way let us not, in utter for getfulness of benefits, scatter their bones to the winds; but if moved they must be, let it be in all
decency, and let a monument mark the resting place of these pioneers
of our city and of our State.  While, however, thought is given to the
dead, let care be had for the living. Let the supports of Fortune's
ladder be as many as possible, give all a chance to climb, and in common honesty, if we invite the immigrant, let us provide employment for
him. As it has been, not much of care was necessary. The mines
were free to all, and to those who did not or could not work there, the
agricultural and other labor employments were open. The success of
all these created other business which gave openings for the employment of the balance.
But we have reached a time of change; every agricultural and pastoral valley and village is at a standstill in progress and improvement,
from the extreme low prices of their productions of the last few years,
checking at once their demand for labori, our cities' manufactures, and
our inbound commerce; for the productive interests of our State are
in amount so great, and give employment to so many people, and support so large a portion of our population, that any change which affects
their prosperity for good or evil, has an effect more or less prompt in
its manifestation on the business and real estate interest of our city. It
is much for San Francisco's interest that a greater range of culture
should be introduced in the State, that the business with our agricultural districts should be increased, and placed on a basis which would
render it less liable to fluctuations, and be more valuable to us than
the present business, which in its amount is wholly reliable on the
changing values of wheat in foreign markets. With mixed or diversified crops there would be little difficulty in increasing the population of
our agricultural counties to three times that of the mining counties.
The advantage to business such a backbone of stable population would
create, is too apparent to need argument.  If we wait tae Aol   progress of immigration and the invitations we now hold out to them, we
may wait long, for it will take years of ordinary effort for our agriculturists and stockmen to overcome the evils now weighing on them, and
none can conscientiously advise new capital investment in our common
agricultural pursuits.
We all know our own local evils, but there is another evil almost at
our doors, in which our business men are directly interested. The
calls for enlistment, and the new mining calls for a time use up the 
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surplus labor, and although sufficient for him who works for wages,
bids fair to increase the agricultural difficulties by the enhanced value
of labor to them, so that although the effect of the war may be next
season to advance the price of their products, they may not be any better customers to us, from the greater cost of raising them.  So that,
view the matter as we may, it is for our city's interest that the breadth
and variety of the agriculture of the State should be enlarged, and any
legitimate means which can be  used to accomplish this end speedily,
the better for the business men of our own day and generation. The
question now arises, how such result may be accomplished, which in
its success would do so much for the business and real estate interests
of our city.
VWhat -Honme Manufactures have done for other Nations, and
what California pays to other States.
EDITOR BULLETIN:-It is well known that all exclusively mining
or exclusively agricultural countries are poor; that the production of
raw material from the fields and forests, or crude metal from the nmines
-even though that metal be gold or silver-is not productive of wealth
to the mass of such population, or of great advantage to the social and
material interests of the country that confines its industry mainly to
these resources. The experience of the last ten years in its results to
the mass of individuMals in our State, would go far to show that a union
of mining with agriculture, as in our case, affords not alone sufficient
strength of resource to ward off from our population, so far as desirable, the evils of an exclusively mining or agricultural State; and if' we
go over all history we shall find their fate-poverty to individualsuntil some other element of employmeut and progress was added to
their national strength. We need only the example our own ancestors
afford to point out our own need and policy. Though England is first
heard of in the world's history by the efforts of the Phoenician navigators to obtain tile products of her mines, although her agricultural
and pastoral wealth tempted the Roman conqueror, we do not hear of
her as a power in Europe until her manufacture for export of coarse
broadeloths had given her home industry and wealth.   We  have only
to look now to the power which mining wealth, careful agriculture, and
home manufactures combined have given the commercial and political
interests of Great Britain, to read a lesson for the future for our own
day and generation, to give such proper business impulse to our State's
progress that the pioneers in this last great effort of civilization may
see no check in its march onward, until our State occupies the position
destiny marks for her, as the great commercial empire of the Pacific.
Home manufactures are the source of England's strength-of the wealth
of Old and New  England-and of the power of recuperation which
has enabled Prussia, Germany and France to recover from the devastating, effects of many a hard fought battle.  Home manufactures will
give California the necessary addition to her mineral and agricultural
resources, that will furnish her people remunerative employment, give
her the necessary capital and currency, make good all promise to immi 
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gration, however large, lift up the weights from business, and make our
agricultural districts glad with a variety of crops and remunerated
effort.
We now import in round numbers, "say" seventy-five dollars to
each individual of our white population. All but fifteen dollars of this
amount we can, if so minded, produce ourselves, and that without reducing our present commerce, for with greater population and greater
export there will be a change and not a reduction in the amount of
shipping business, while the interior business would increase five-fold.
Could we at once produce and manufacture the articles we now import
-except those which are beyond our production-we would iminmediately save $24,000,000 of yearly out-payments, which would be added
to our currency or cash capital. Any portion of this amount, which
we may by strenuous effort or steady support of home-made  product
keep here, is so much added to present capital, and while thus in the
power of individuals to do much, it is in the power of the State to do
much more. A judicious yearly appropriation of $100,000, running
over a term of five years, would set all the wheels and springs in
motion that would bring about this result. Five or ten years in the
life of our State are not much; twenty-five cents outlay to the individual per year, on the present amount of population, is not a large sum.
Yet, if our legislators could be made to look squarely at that five years'
outlay, and at its ten years' result, our people's two bits apiece will be
remarkably well invested. I fully believe we could then have home
manufactures of every wearable produet, and home productions of fourfifths of our present importations, with the commencement of an export
trade which will eventually whiten the Pacific with the sails of our
commerce.
Is this a day dream? I have seen this State grow; I have seenii
each year some new element of future wealth and progress, until I have
the most unlimited faith in its future greatness and destiny; and I have
the same faith that it is in our power to hurry forward that greatncss
of commerce and wealth of production, so that the progress of the ten
years on which we are now entering, will far exceed the past in material interest and of benefit to individuals. I may be pardoned for adding, that I have just as firm faith that if we  continue legislating for
party and political interests, instead of for the material interests of our
State, more of depression and ruin awaits some of California's best interests' than prosperity. We can be wise in time and ward off evil.
The business from the agricultural districts lifted our city once out of
financial distress. Aid them now by the variety of production and
ready market which home manufactures would insure, and we establish a foundation for our city's trade and prosperity which cannot be
taken from us, while it will add millions to the active business capital
of the State.
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How the State Government may Develop our Resources.
EDITOR BULLETIN:-The great range of latitude and consequent
variety of soil and climate within our State's borders render possible a
variety of agricultural resources which no other State of our Union
possesses, while but few countries can show an equality either in variety or extent of production. Geographical position gives us the advantage of markets, which our countrymen, or European competitors, can
only reach by sailing round a continent, while that same position-distant from all sources of manufacturing supply-acts as a protection
to any branch of industry to which California enterprise may give
birth, but permits no interchange of products with a drawback in
freights and expenses, onerous in their amount in time of peace, and
prohibitory in time of war.
Our political position calls from the State Government more careful
legislation than that of any other State, while the general policy of the
Federal Government may not always be in harmony with the State's
best interests. It would be for the benefit of our State to speedily
develop every material resource, in order that we mav become independent of all the other States in regard to their production and manufactures, and so far as possible of foreign nations.  As we export but
mineral and agricultural products, all our exchanges with them are
unfair, as we only exchange raw material, produced with high rates of
labor, without after benefit to us of manufactures, against their goods
and products of low rates of labor.  If we can obtain an offset by bet
ter communication with our own and other countries, at the partial ex.
pense of the Federal Government, we shall receive no more than our
dues; but in the prosperity such facilties would give our business, the
profit made upon us by the other States would not be so much to our
detriment.
From necessity we shall for years labor under these disadvantages, if
we wait the natural development of the State's resources without extracting stimulus or legislative aid. The necessity exists that our
State Government should do for California what stronger and more
centralized governments have done for their countries.  Liberal rewards offered will cover our fields with strange harvests, and bring
forth the products of the loom, spindle and workshop in such perfection that all reasonable wants may be supplied in home manufactures.
With a liberal premium for the first hundred bags of sugar or first
1,000 bales of flax, hemp or cotton; for the first 1,000 bales of drills
or burlaps, manufactured from California-grown material, in mills
erected for the purpose; or for the first hundred bales of hops, or hlogshead of tobacco; the first 1,000 cases of merchantable boots and shoes
firom California-tanned hides; the first ten or first hundred bales of
raw silk-and so on through every branch of industry and agriculture
whose products or manufactures are yet foreign to our soil-I say,
with liberal premiums of that character offered to them by the State,
farmers, mechanics and manufacturers would soon be enabled to deserve and win them. Let the State offer liberal rewards, but let the
State be sure that the rewards, when paid, are merited. Let us encourage no second-rate product or inferior manufacture. Place the 
14
merit-mark high, make the stimulus great; but let it be fairly earned.
Let a committee of the Legislature summon some of the practical
mechanics, manufacturers, and producers of the State to their aid;
carefully select those productions and manufactures to be encouraged;
let the list be full, but have each thing or product in itself complete;
make the thing such that none may fear a change of policy before his
productions have reached maturity-antd a stimulus may be provided,
which will double, in a few short years, the whole taxable wealth of
the State. As Californians we have done much-no persons or people
have done more; but we cannot stop or hesitate. Our machine of
progress must be kept in running order. We, who have made the
State what it is, have the power to double her strength, her wealth and
population, long before our children are ready to take our places. We
have only to make the encouragement of home production a cardinal
point and prominent feature in our State policy, to not only provide
business for ourselves, and a heritage for our children, but to give
California a first position in the Federal Union, before the business life
has ceased to the energetic pioneers of'49. 
HOME MANUFACTURES.
New Channels for California Trade and Industry.
Great as are the results of the last ten years' effort in making our State
independent of foreign supply, we believe the results of the next ten
years will manifest a productive and manufacturing ability in our people
surprising to the most sanguine in California's power to rely on her own
resources. Our workshops, founderies and manufactures will multiply
as the raw material of their labor is found in our mountains or produced from our soil. Present events and the patriotism of our people
will create a greater esteem for Californian products, until a tariff of
public opinion, a fashion of wear'and use of home-made articles give
the efficient protection to the producer and manufacturer, which will
encourage into life and daily consumption the products and manufactures of our State, enlarging the wealth and variety of employment of
our people.
Our foreign commerce will also increase with the growth of capital
and production, stimulated into the more immediate effort by the broad
opening made for the products of our forests and shipyards, by the
treaty made by the Allies with the Chinese. The opening of the great
valleys of China is a commercial operation promising such vast results
that their full scope and benefit to our people may not, for a time, be
comprehended. We believe, however, it is destined to have a marked
effect on our commerce, and early introduce a manufacturing interest
to the Pacific States.
In the great valley of the Yang-tse-Kiang we shall probably have
an unlimited demand for the products of our forests, while return
freights may be had for our lumber-laden vessels in Chinese products,
including cotton, which may be manufactured here for reexport to the
same countries. At first thought, this operation would seem to be at
an impossibility of cost; but as hand labor, however cheap, has never
yet competed with cotton-manufacturing machinery, and as we have
here the power to construct, and skill and labor to use the machinery
of woolen manufactories, it would seem as if we need not "wait for the
railroad" to bring us the manufactures of the Eastern States, before
we export piece goods to Asia. The import and manufacture of the
first bale solves" the whole difficulty, and if the production of cotton in 
16
the great valley of China is as abundant as present commercial information indicates, no country will reap a greater benefit from it than
our own California. Our lumbermen, ship-builders and machinists
will first feel the influence of this new opening to commerce; our whole
people the effect of the returns of their adventures. Our next ten
years are full of promise, heightened by the gratifyiiing prospect of a
large market for our exports and an increased employment for our population.-Alta.
Manfatng Chinese Cotton in California
Mlanufacturing Chinese Cotton ill California.
Our correspondent," Cathay," expresses some doubt as to the cor rectness of our opinion of the feasibility of manufacturing Chinese
cotton in California into fabrics for the China market, and also expresses
his own opinion that mills will be established in the Chinese cities,
against which European or American labor can not compete. The
unsettled and uncertain nature of the Chinese Government, the extortion of officials, and danger from robbers and insurrection, render
any investment of capital in amount commensurate with the establishment of a cotton mill in any of the Chinese cities an undertaking so
hazardous that no capitalist, or company, Chinese or European, would
make the investment. In regard to their establishment at Hongkong,
it would not be policy for the English Government to encourage an
undertaking so much at variance with the interest of their largest manufacture. Climate and location are also against the undertaking. The
freight of raw cotton from the valley of the Yang-tse-Kiang to Hongkong, against the monsoon, would require nearly an equal time, and be
at as much expense, as the carriage from that point to our own ports.
In regard to labor, we have the precedelnts of British trade in India.
English manufacturers import the Indian-grown cotton, manufacture
imitations of the native cloths and handkerchiefs, underselling the
Indian fabrics in the very districts where the cotton was grown.
China is said to contain four hundred millions of people, whose clothing is mainly of cotton fabrics. If we estimate the consumption of
raw cotton, exclusive of their imports, at fifteen pounds to the individual, we shall have a yearly production of raw cotton in China equal
to twelve millions of bales of five hundred pounds each. There can
be little doubt that with the introduction of the cotton-gin and better
implements of agriculture, that this amount may be increased to a surplus for the most liberal export. We can ship our spars, lumber, and
some of the products of our soil, but we cannot yet take a return
freight of the more valuable Chinese products, for we have not yet
the population to consume or the facilities to tranship them to the more
populous States. But our vessels for the Yang-tse-Kiang might bring
return of raw cottons to be manufactured on the splendid water powers
of the timber districts of California and Oregon, affording our me.
chanics and machinists a new labor, and making available the Mango,
lian element of our population for that portion of the labor generally
performed by the women and children of other countries. —Alta, 
17
Increase and Decrease of Asiatic Cottons.
The production of American grown cotton has so steadily increased
since the invention of Whitney, that the India manufactures of cotton
and the Chinese manufacture of nankeens have been so effectually
cleared from our markets, that but little recollection remains of their
value and luxury to our immediate ancestors. And as the only imports of raw cottons have been the low-priced short-stapled cottons of
Bombay, the existence of the fine qualities has been seriously questioned-although at an exhibition of India manufactures recently made
at Manchester, some of the India products were finer than any of the
English goods on exhibition.  It is, therefore, fair to infer that these
fine qualities have only to be sought for, and their culture will take the
place of the coarser staples, now so abundant in India that the cost at
the plantations is but from fwo and a half to three cents per pound, the
latter price seeming sufficient to indefinitely increase the amounts for
shipment from Bombay.
While the American culture annually advanced in amount equal to
the calls of the new spindles, neither necessity nor desire existed to
call forth steady effort to forward the Indian culture, which has only
been called upon, spasmodically, as the American supply has been short.
That no raw cotton has been shipped from China is owing entirely
to absence of demand; the course of trade, so far from calling for raw
cottons, has acted as a direct prohibition of its export. When the direct
trade with China was opened to Europeans, the export of manufactured
cottons was as profitable to the Chinese as some of their other products
now are. China then produced all her own supply, and enough for all
the demands for export, until the inventions of Arkwright and Whitney enabled the Europeans to manufacture cottons cheaper than their
hand labor would admit. At the same time, the growing demand for
teas and other products afforded their agriculturists more profit in
their culture, gradually lessening the home supplies of cotton until a
large market is afforied to the piece goods of England and the United
States, and also for the raw cottons of Bengal. Can any one doubt
that demand would bring back its culture to its former extent, or that
in spite of Chinese adherence to custom and precedent, that it might
not be stimulated, as has been the production of teas, sugar, camphor,
raw silk, and other articles for which Europeans have instituted a pressing demand?  If we mistake not, the export of raw silk was increased
in the course of ten years from 20,000 to 80,000 bales per annum,
these last shipped from the new port of Shanghae against the demands
and rivalry of an older trade at Canton.
The Chinese are wedded to old customs-but not against profitable
employment of their labor and capital. Steadily demand their raw
cotton, and in a limited period the bales will be produced for many a
good ship's lading.-Alta.
Asiatic Production of Cotton.
Our correspondent, " Cathay," is still skeptical as to the amount of
Chinese cotton produced, and expresses a general doubt as to Asiatic.
2 
18
or Polynesian supply of this staple of commerce. Of course, in countries like China or India, statistical information in reference to production, except those comprised in their foreign exports, is simply impossible to he obtained; but fair inference may be made of the amount of
this production when we have a knowledge of the amount of their population, of their habits of dress and consumption, as well as the amount
of their foreign imports. We have these data, on which we gave our
opinion in reference to the present production of cotton in China, making liberal allowances for the manufactured cottons shipped to their
ports by European nations, and for their import of raw cottons from
Bengal and Corea, making the total of our estimate only one-half the
amount a late writer of intelligence has given of the Chinese product.
The estimate of fifteen pounds of cotton to the use of each individual Chinese, is the same as the quantity used by our citizens, who consume less cotton, proportionally, from the greater use of linens and
woolens in the United States, while cotton is the staple of clothing of
the Mongolians. The difficulty of cleaning raw cotton by hand labor
will account for its production not being heretofore extended beyond
the wants of a home consumption, aside from the difficulties of tranllsport which a bulky, low-priced article would entail in a country where
vehicles or beasts of burden are not in common use. In India, with
all the aid of the bullock, camel and elephant, it was almost impossible
to get the raw cotton from the interior to the seaports in good condition.
The immediate effect the railroads built in the last few years have had
in stimulating production, may be seen in the desire of the India land holders to evade their contracts to produce indigo, and apply their re sources to the cultivation of cotton, which, since the introduction of the
cotton-gin and the facilities of transport, has become more profitable
than the indigo product. When we take into consideration that only
eighteen years since the services of 180,000 oxen were required for
the packing of 72,000 bales of cotton to Bombay, we may easily con ceive the difference which will be made in the culture of this staple,
now that a network of roads, constructed with a ipecial reference to its
transport, are spanning the peninsula. In fact, we already see the
effect, in an export in the last year to Great Britain of some 600,000
bales, while near 400,000 were shipped to Canton. If we assume the
present population of India to be 200,000,000, and allow the same es timate of consumption made for China, fifteen pounds to the individual,
we have a total, including the exports, of India production of 7,000,000
bales of five hundred pounds each. If we assume the India and Chi nese import of cotton, produced or manufactured in other countries, to
amount to two pounds to the individual, we have an average use of
seventeen pounds to the Asiatic per annum. We believe, however,
twenty pounds per annum to each native of India, and twenty-five
pounds to each Chinese, would be nearer the truth of production and
consumption in these countries. Our correspondent, however, has taken
so wide a range in his comments, we have not space or time to answer
his inquiries in one article, but shall again recur to the subject, con  ceiving the introduction of manufactures to our State as of vital im  portance to our prosperity.-Alta.
0 
19
Extent of Asiatic Cotton Lantds and Scarcity of Timber.
We have heretofore spoken of the roads in progress to transport the
India cotton.  Enough of these are in construction for commercial and
military purposes to make an ease of transport to all the products of
Central India.  This'district embraces near 200,000 square miles, a
large portion of which is.adapted to cotton culture.  Central China, the
flowery land and home of agriculture in that country, embraces near
2,000,000 of square miles, one-third of which is classed with the best
tillage lands of the world.  The network of rivers between the Hoanghi and Yang-tse-Kiang, connected by the grand canal, affords easy
transport to all agricultural products, when the Government of the
country is sufficiently strong to prevent the outrages of robbers and
the exactions of local mandarins. There can be no question on means
of transport under a settled Government, whenever European factories
are established at the cities on the great rivers, which we understand is
admissible under the present treaties.  These rivers drain a basin equal
to 1,500,000 square miles, the Yang-tse-Kiang navigable  for boats
1,700 miles, while large vessels can reach two hundred miles from its
mouth. This country is bare of forests, except on the steepest mountains. Along ridges where other plants will not grow, pines are carefully planted to lessen the greatest evil in all Chinese'economics the
scarcity of wood. There is always a demand for lumber for building
and manufacturing purposes, as well as demand for spars for junk 1masts
and foreign shipping.
Shipments, limited in amount, have been made  from the  United
States and Manila. Spars have steadily been shipped as part of the
outward cargo of our regular East Indiamen, while cargoes have been
taken from New Zealand and from Columbia river, even before the
gold discoveries in California. A steady supply, at low prices, will
command a market extensive as the rivers open to trade while peace
reigns in that country.
The Chinese are alive to the benefits of river steamers, and to the
advantages which shipments on European vessels give in safety and
certainty of insurance. Before the pirates made the voyages of the
junks almost impossible, the Chinese merchant calculated to lose one
venture in three. He now avoids the risk by freighting in foreign bottoms. The opening of the rivers will call for the construction of a
fleet of light draught steamers, which California can supply.  We  have
faith the trade may be ours, if the effort be made to secure it, and that
as our mills increase, and labor decreases in value, we may make steady
shipments of lumber to China's great valley, and, if we will, that the
return vessels may be loaded with a product which will give employment to Californian looms and spindles.  Our  northern forests will
resound with cheerful industry, and our shipyards give forth the productions of ingenious labor. Youthful California and Oregon will spare
to aged China the surplus of their forests for the products of her plains,
made bare of the wood by the wants for centuries of a dense population.
-Alta. 
20
Our Industrial Interests.
The industrial occupations of our State are now in process of change.
The cost of labor has decreased to such rates, that new branches of
industry may be introduced, giving employment to a large number of
people, and adding greatly to the public wealth. There is now only one
question in which capital and enterprise both hesitate, and that is in
regard to the stability and reliability of their labor. The Fraser river
stampede taught all those whose business compels the employment of
many hands a serious lesson on the risks of their investment-an evil,
sudden and startling in its effects to those who held open contracts, or
whose crops were in need of the sickle.
To such excitements we are, from our situation, liable, until each
foot of the coast, and every canion of the interior, has been thoroughly
examined. The very nature of our population is excitable and athirst
for adventure, lacking a stability which would guaranty safety and con tinuance in any manufacture, or in any production requiring daily,
steady, accustomed labor. The Chinese element of our population presents some resource from which at times to supply this necessary labor.
Their services were availed of in the strawberry fields of Alameda this
last season, and also in some of the vineyards of Sonoma. But the
present crusade against this class of labor renders their future use uncertain, and in consequence, in many instances, a hesitation is felt in
embarking in any enterprise which, to be successful, requires steady,
moderate-priced labor.  Any direct interference with labor in a young
country like this, in which every manufacturing enterprise is yet in
embryo, is in a measure suicidal to the interests of the whole community, for of a surety no new manufacturing effort, no new branch of
productive industry will be opened, either to enterprise or capital, while
labor is uncertain and the law of force supreme. The agricultural interest of the State is just now an instance of remarkable enterprise in
the face of doubt and and ill-success. The labor market has receded
five dollars per month, on which the farmers have made their venture,
and thousands of men are now employed who would, perforce, have
been idle but for this concession-thus having not alone present employment, but a greater abundance in the harvest time. The fact of a
lower rate of wages will produce a steadier employment, more men
will be hired by the year, and less unwillingness will be felt in increased
labor when opportunity offers.  With better service on the part of the
employed, there will be more liberality and a greater breadth of employment offered. We are passing into an improved state of things in
this respect, whose good fruits will, the coming season, be made manifest throughout the whole productive interests of the State.-Alta.
Californian Manufactures and their Export.
One of the advantages of an established trade is the assistance it
renders to other trade and business. We will suppose the effort made
to establish a demnand for our lumber in the Yang-tse-Kiang; that we
have introduced the cotton gin to Chinese industry, and that the bales
0
0 
21
of cotton are had for the asking.  We are not confined to this trade;
our woolen mills are in operation, and China wants the manufactured
product of every pound of wool that Califbornia can produce, all the more
ready to purchase, from the fact that we take cotton in return, which
they can produce in abundance.  The Chinese like the high-priced
English cloths, but the lower classes cannot afford to buy them; and in
the competition between the English, German and Russian low-priced
cloths, the Russian has the preference, as making the better wear. One
reason probably is, the Russian goods are all wool, while the English
and German may contain some cotton.  It is one of the mysteries of
trade how Russia can undersell her rivals, with her long inland transport, but such is often the case, and of so much value is the trade considered, that very soon after the Crimean war, machinery was purchased
at Hamburg and shipped by the Russian Government, for the erection
of woolen factories on the Amoor. WVe can compete in this trade. Our
wool will be saved two freights, and more than a year's interest on its
cost, a saving to serve as offset to any additional price of labor, and a
motive to encourage this branch of industry by judicious legislation and
a sound public opinion onil the question of a daily wear of the products of
our own looms and home industry.  We are again disappointed in the
passage of our railroad appropriation through Congress, which renders
it all the more important that California by her own products and manufactures should render herself daily more independent of the productions of those States that have withheld their votes and assistance to
the great measure of our vital interest. We can build up home productions and home manufactures of the great staples of daily use and
wear, and yearly lessen our dependence, increasing ill the same ratio
our own wealth of production and export.  Let us have a little of the
Virginia "homespun" and Massachusetts " tea party" spirit, and in
less time than it would take to build the railroad, if commenced, we
may double our domestic wealth and provide millions of labor to the
population we desire. No larger amount of ready capital is required
to accomplish this result-the germ is already with us, which we have
only to nourish into life, to bear the fruits we desire. Encourage our
woolen manufactures, and their success will bring forth the cotton mill
and all its accompaniments of home industry and employment to our
shipping. —Alta.
Cotton Product of the South Sea Islands.
We now come to the doubt expressed as to the cotton produced in
the South Sea Islands. We have heretofore calledi attention to the
value of the products of many of the South Sea Islands to the future
commerce of San Francisco, and have at the same time spoken of the
value of the cotton of the Fiji Islands, of its fine staple, luxuriant
product and ease of cultivation. Our statements were based on information afforded by American voyagers to that part of Polynesia, and
we now see them corroborated by the report of the English Cotton Supply Association, who speak of the Fiji Island samples of cotton as the
best of their collection, and state 4,000,000 of bales as the capability
of product of the Fiji group. Nor does this capability end here, for
#I 
22
the New Hebrides, Western New Caledonia, and the Eastern portions
of the Solomon's group, possess the same capabilities of soil and climate; the same rich volcanic soil, and the same sweep of trade winds
and genial sea breeze, which produce the beautiful Sea Island staple
of Fiji. On all these groups, except that of Fiji, the native labor can-'
not be relied on; any culture, whether cotton, coffee or spices, would
require imported labor.  Not so at Fiji-the savage warriors of that
group, though terrible in their cannibal feasts, are industrious in the
arts of peace, good tillers of the soil, and docile, industrious and ingenious under gentle government and requited labor.   The'"Rewa"
district is the most available for immediate culture, a large and convenient harbor, with a river navigable for boats, penetrating into the fertile valley of Viti-lib. A cotton field of 1,800 square miles may be
made valuable to its production, much of it with less effort than is required to clear many a forest farm. The native yam and taro patches
cover this ground, while along the banks of the rivers, a sugar cane of
rare luxuriance and richness adds a wealth to this district, destined at
some future day to be to England's Australian colonies what the richest
of the West Islands are to us.  There is not the remotest doubt of
the capacity of that part of the world to supply cotton of' rare value,
and in an amount equal to all the Europeanl  and American consumption, if labor and capital are applied to it. The garden and gem spots
of creation are in savage possession.  Years hence, commerce and civilization will reach them.  Some will be reclaimed to commerce in our
day and generation, but more will rest free from the tread of the white
man until another greater generation burst forth in adventure from
our coast. To them they will produce the coffee, sugar and other valuables of traffic, with an abundance of richness unsurpassed in the
present achievements of commerce.-Alita.
Cotton Import Assisting Home Production.
No one can doubt but that the best interests of our State would be
subserved by the manufacture of cotton, not only for our own'use, but
for export. But the growth and cultivation of this staple sufficient for
this purpose, involves the slow progress of years, and the fostering
hand of legislative aid, to induce the embarkation of capital in the
necessary large and lengthened investment. We can sooner reach the
result of home production by the encouragement of import.   If we
can secure sufficient of imported cotton to warrant the erection of
mills, that moment its cultivation will commence on our own soil, with
a certain assurance its product will command immediate market,
whether it be one bale or thousands. We have shown what we think
the easiest sources of supply, but have not shown them all, nor in truth
the nearest sources in the Pacific, aside from the supplies that might be
acquired in the countries to the south of us. Cotton is found through
all the Islands so lately described by Capt. Gibson, and is also in abundance in the Phillipines. Its cultivation and manufacture by the
natives has in a great measure ceased, but demand and the cotton gin 
V
23
would also here secure its production. Enough, however, has been
shown that we have only to desire to manufacture coarse cottons, to
secure the upland staples in quantity unlimited, by using only ordinary
commercial energy. To secure the Sea Island cotton, extraordinary
effort will be required and a long outlay of capital; we doubt not,
however, this outlay and effort will be made, that simultaneous with
the introduction of coolies and its culture in Australia, the effort and
active colonization will be made at Fiji. For all our present purposes
the fine staple is not necessary to us; we do not want the fine goods for
the export trade we will have, nor would their manufacture be profitable at the labor rates of the next ten years. All manufactures and
productions, except of the coarsest products, in some stage of their
manufacture or cultivation, require a low priced labor. It would seem
as if a special provision had been made for our wants in this respect
in being so early in possession of this inferior labor.  We can use the
Chinese in those portions of the manufactures performed by the women,
children, and lower class of labor in other countries, and for the weeding and picking the cotton fields of our own production, their presence
rendering the introduction of this product and manufacture at this
early stage of our State's progress not only possible but profitable.
Every loom and spindle we can set in motion, creates employment for
other labor; every piece of goods we produce, increases our State's
wealth, and lessens our dependence; every bale of goods we ship, will
give a return which will add not only to other business, but lessen the
general cost of those articles we must import.-Alta.
Extent of Cotton Lands, and the Value of Manufactures to
General Business.
So much has been said in favor of the acquisition of territory for the
growth of cotton, that the idea has become general that a very large
amount of land is required for this purpose. The reality is, that at
three hundred and fifty pounds- per acre, ten thousand square miles
would grow the largest cotton crop the United States has yet had. So
long have we used the cotton gin, that we forget the impulse which its
invention gave to cotton culture. The first ten bales of American cot,ton sent to Europe were seized by the authorities, on the ground of the
impossibility of the production of so large a quantity in America. The
year before the introduction of the cotton gin, shipments had fallen off;
its use immediately increased the shipments of the next year 1,000 per
cent. more than the falling off of the year before.  We have shown in
previous articles that there are six hundred thousand square miles of
present cotton-producing country to which the cotton gin is comparatively
a stranger, and one-third as much more to which cotton is indigenous,
but in which its culture has not yet commenced, and some thirty thousand square miles where the much coveted Sea Island is native to the
soil, and having thus answered the question of our correspondent as to
where cotton may be had, and where the cotton trade of the Pacific
will be, we turn now to the labor portion of the subject, and the pro 
24
ductive interests of our State, which would share the benefit of any
movement towards home manufactures.
From what we have done, a fair inference may be drawn as to what
we may do. We have, in this State and in Oregon, constructed woolen
mills, and commenced the profitable manufacture of coarse goods for
our own use, with a reasonable prospect of being able to manufacture for
export. Next will follow the cultivation and manufacture of flax, until
California burlaps become a staple of -daily use and export. Then
comes cotton, with all its attendant train of collateral labor and productions, agricultural, commercial, and mechanical. If we follow out a
portion of the business of the manufactories started in our midst, we
have some evidence of what an extension of this interest would accomplish for the welfare of this State. First, we have the capital
invested in the business secured to California, with all the benefit to
the material interests represented in the erection and construction of
buildings and machinery. Next, we have the competition in the market
for the wool crop, the buyer for home consumption against the buyer
for other States, an insurance against combination, which will always
secure the full value of the new staple to the producer. Next, the
labor, direct, and indirect, concerned in its manufacture, beyond that
required fbr the production of the raw material. Next, the labor of
manufacture of the product of the mill into clothing, in this case
greater in the number of employes than that of the number directly
engaged in the mill. We then have the advantage of capital retained in
the community for every displacemcnt which its products make in our
regular imports, and the saving made to individuals in the cheapening of
all articles with which its manufactures come into competition. The
success of manufacturing will call forth new effort, which will require
the services of machine shops and foutnderies, and the planting of madder and indigo for dye stuffs. Still more success, and we have a material of constant export suitable to the wants of those countries to
which the whole civilized world will long be dependent for that tea
product which no other soils have yet yielded in abundance.-Alta.
Available Labor for Home Manufactures.
Ini any movement made towards home manufactures, or the cultivation of the finer products of the soil, the question of the value of labor
becomes the turning point on which success or failure will depend. On
all out-door labor agreeable to the European or American, five to ten
per cent. advance, beyond the highest rates paid in the Atlantic States,
can be easily afforded, from the fact of equal daylight, and a favorable,
bracing climate, giving the muscular power, health and will to the laborer to accomplish more than the laborer of other lands. The protective tariff which distance, freights, time and interest places upon all
imported goods, also allows a better rate of wages to be paid to the indoor operative.  But, as before stated, there are certain portions of the
work on all fine productions, either of the manufactory or of the soil,
which must be performed not only by a cheap, but by a patient, steady,
reliable and sober labor; but where the possibility exists without a
AP 
25
very active ambition to soar above the monotony and sameness of a
never varied toil.
Some labor the white man will not perform; other kinds he will in no
case but that of a personal interest, perform well; and still other which
will not afford the lowest rate which white labor will for many years
reach in California.
The hoeing and picking of cotton under a burning sun, the weeding
and picking insects off of tobacco, are among the disagreeables of outdoor labor; while few strong and hearty intelligent Americans will
patiently follow the loom and spindles, year in and out, at any rate of
wages which manufacturers can pay. For whatever we may produce
from our factories, either of home production or for export, comes directly in competition with the low-priced labor and machinery of other
countries.  Whatever we may desire to export, except the cereals, be
it hops, dried fruits, tobacco or cotton, which requires much of labor in
preparation, is barred where all the details are managed at high rates
of labor. We can manufacture, if the looms and spindles are attended
by moderate steady labor; we can cultivate fruits for export, if the
drying process can be cheapened; we can cultivate hops, if the picking
and drying are at one-half the usual rates of harvest labor; we can
grow tobacco, if the weeding and insect-cleaning can be done at the
same ratio of cost, and the same with flax or cotton; but as the labor
on all these occurs at the same season, when out-door wages are at the
highest on account of the cereal harvest, there is almost a prohibition
against any enlarged culture under present customs.  On all manufactures and prepared crops the indirect labor is nearly as great as the
direct labor of production. On all these branches of business a portion
of the labor requires skill and intelligence; in all the indirect labor the
highest order of labor intelligence is necessary. We may have the
lowest order in the weeding and spinning; the highest on the assorting,
curing, manufacturing, selling, shipping, packing and freighting, besides
all the collateral labor of construction, tool and machine-making and
preparation, so that throughout the whole range of the different business herein sketched, at least two Americans may have profitable, first
class employment for every cheap operative in the lower or earlier
stages of the product, a fact that those who frown on our Chinese labor
would do well to consider, lest they in their crusade against them shut
the door of profitable and agreeable employment to many of their own
countrymen. —Alta.
Benefit to Individuals.
Having heretofore referred to the woolen mills already established,
we will further consider some of the indirect benefits already dawning
upon us through their operation. The tweeds and flannels turned out
are all wool, of a class suitable for the manufacture of coats, pants,
shirts, and clothing generally.   It is difficult to arrive at the amount
per annum-we now import of manufactured goods under these heads,
except that of flannel shirts, which has been, in the past, in amount 
26
varying from 1,250,000 to 1,500,000, each representing one dollar, for
the product of other States, for which we are now in a fair way to
manufacture ourselves.
The operatives now engaged in the manufacture of shirts from Californian flannel turn out a capital fabric, which can be sold already at
the same rates as the imported article. Did the business end here, it
would be a very desirable operation for the State, and a benefit to individuals, in the fact that so much more money was left in circulation,
prospering the immediate producers, manufacturers, and operatives.
But aside from these benefits of remunerative employment to so many
people-from wool producer through all the changes, until the shirts
are in the retail stores-there is a positive benefit to the consumer;
he buys a better and more durable article at the same cost which has
been paid for articles of a mixed fabric. The Californian-made article
bids fair to do thirty per cent. more wear than the imported, aside from
all the extra warmth which a home-made article will impart to any
one who has identified his life interests with our State.  The tweeds
are most desirable wear in this climate, and the shawls not surpassed,
for gentIemen's use, by the best imported. We have now within our
power to stop the drain on our cash resources of an amnount of which
two and a half millions per annum have left our shores since 1849. If
our citizens have enough of patriotism to make Californian productions
and manufacture the fashion of our State, we need not-" Wait for the
Railroad" to be the wealthiest community in the United States. Every
production or manufacture we adopt adds to the current wealth and
value of every other article of our production. Each manufacture that
becomes part of our daily use gives employment to the present, and a
profitable call to a greater population. Each manufacture that becomes
a success induces a new effort, until step by step, and year by year,
the comforts of life are increased, while cost as regularly decreases;
and without other effort than a general preference for the product and
manufacture of our own State, we will add to our wealth, accelerate
our progress, until our California becomes, in our day and generation,
wealthy, powerful and self-reliant in her manufacture, production and
export, fiom the industry, intelligence and patriotism of her citizens,
of value to her far beyond the mineral wealth her mountains and rivers
have so freely given forth.   Political difficulties of our country have
left our State to her own resources-we are deprived of the aid a generous Government should have given us. We commend this subject
of general use and favor of home manufactures to our citizens, as an
element which will go far to compensate for the impetus to our progress the Pacific Railroad would have given.-4Alta.
The Manufacture of Manila Rope.
We have lately referred to the progress made in the manufacture of
Manila cordage in our city, and the relative value of our own manufactures in comparison with those of Manila and of the United States.
Also, in regard to the experiments now being made in the use of man 
27
ufactured Manila for bolt ropes to the cotton canvas sails.  If our city
manufactures can maintain their present character, we shall eventually
secure the cordage market of the whole Pacific coast.  If the whaling
fleet make our harbor their rendezvous, our home market for it will be
largely increased.  If further trial shows that Manila for cotton canvas
bolt ropes to be better than hemp, its manufacture and consumption
generally will be increased, enough, in fact, to effect the value of the
Manila hemp, which, within the last few years, has remained at comparatively low figures.
This article of commerce is derived from a species of banana tree,
indigeneous to the forests of Mindanao, one of the largest islands of
the Phillipine group. The tree is cultivated for its fiber, which is obtained by rotting the trunk of the tree until the woody matter falls
away from the fibre, which, with little cleaning, becomes the Manila
hemp of commerce. This is collected by the natives into rolls, bundles
and small bales, care being taken not to entangle the hemp, shipped in
small coasting vessels to Manila, and then screwed into the regular
two hundred and eighty pound bales of commerce.  The bulk of the
product is then shipped to the United States; England, and other
commercial countries, using comparatively little of this fiber in their
cordage manufactories. Under favorable circumstances, the Phillipines
will continue a sufficient supply for the ordinary demands of commerce,
at rates not much varying from the present, as Americans being the
largest buyers keep down competition, while care is taken by those in
the trade not to let the rates to the producer recede so far as to check
production.
We doubt our ability to produce this fiber in California, but if a new
source of supply is ever sought, it will be found indigenous to the
Caroline and portions of the Solomon's Islands, and in all probability
in the mountains of the Eastern Archipelago, and doubtless, could be
cultivated probably in Nicaragua and Central America. We may con sider its manufacture domiciled with us, eventually to give us an in ward and outward commerce, as well as employment to our laborers.
At present, it affords a most valuable freight for the light lading of
our sugar and coffee-ballasted vessels from Manila. In case war or
other cause should temporarily stop its supply, the same manufactories
could be used in the manufacture of the Sisal hemp of Central Amer ica, without much of alteration, except possibly in the carding machines.
-Alta.
Soap, Oils, etc.
Any manufacture that has a foreign commerce in its connection will
be more valuable to our progress than those which only supply our
daily wants, without the addition of any movement of commerce in the
way of import and export. An addition might be made to our soap
manufactures, which would be a source of profit as well as the means
of employment to our smaller vessels, and in time, an avenue of sale
to some of the coarser products of our manufactories and workshops.
The tropical isles of the Pacific abound with cocoa nuts, from which 
28
the natives are easily induced to manufacture cocoa nut oil; coarse
cottons, calicos, hardware, tobacco, paint, bottles and trinkets generally,
being the inducement held out for their labor.
To carry on this business with ease and at light cost, several small
vessels should be engagoed in it, under one company or ownership. A
distribution of casks made among the native chiefs, where their authority is well established, but as some of the best oil producing groups are
essentially republican, and in others the women have a small say in
politics,*and a good deal in business, it will be better to leave a clerk
or youngster with the casks, taking care, in the last case, the beads and
calico are the staple of his trade chest; while in the firt case, a stipulation will probably be made for a certain amount of hardware or firearms when the casks are filled. Care should also be taken that where
assistants are left, they should be natives of groups of islands distant
from where the traffic is being made; this course prevents combination
and treachery.
At the end of three or four months a call may be made for the full
casks, leaving another supply of material and empty casks, at the same
time taking on board any amount of pearl shells, beche-le-mer, ginger,
tumeric, or other produce which may have been collected. In default
of full lading, in some cases oranges, in others coarse mahogany may
be taken on board to make out the voyage. Once here, the cocoa nut
oil may be made into soap and candles for our own use and for export,
as also available for manufactures and for machinery.  We have before
referred to this trade as one destined to.be of value to our future commerce. From similar small beginnings the trade of Sumatra, Zanzibar
and  Madagascar have increased to the present enormous amount and
value, and although, to us, these small rills of commerce may be but
shadows, the commerce of the present almost unknown islands of the
Pacific will be profitable realities to our children.  We may commence
this commerce soon, to the benefit of our State, by combining its products with some branch of business already established, similar to the
programme we have sketched above.-Alta.
Shoe and Leather Trade.
While the tanning of leather is pursued as a profitable business from
Shasta to Santa Cruz, the manufacture of boots and shoes, except for
special order, may be said not to have commenced with us. Our imports of these articles are large in proportion to our population, for our
dry summers and the rough work of mining, cause quick consumption
of sole leather. 1,800,000 pairs per annum we think not too large an
estimate of our custom to the shoe trade, representing an aggregate of
$5,000,000 in our yearly expenditure.  The  machinery of the shoe
manufacture is now brought to such perfection, that much less hand
labor is required in their manufacture than was the case a few years
since, and now that California leather is produced in quality and abundance available to this trade, we look soon to the inauguration of a
boot and shoe manufactory, holding in its results a sure future to the
company that may invest in this great enterprise. For it is nearly 
29
certain that any style of manufacture in operation here which can meet
the market at the same price as the imported article, soon achieves
monopoly. Heretofore the manufacture of leather for harness, belting,
&c., has most engaged the attention of our tanneries; sole and upper
leather have had but slight attention; in fact, the desire heretofore
to grow all our cattle to three year olds has not given a large supply
of the finer skins.
This year there will be no difficulty in this matter, as more calves
will probably be killed throughout the State than in any three years
since'49; and as the salting of beef has become a regular feature in
our trade, the hide business will, in the future, be more regular and
extensive. There is a drawback to the value of Californian leather,
even when well tanned, from the great number of brands on the cattle,
and the carelessness of the butchers, who often clip the hide in using
too much haste in the skinning process, rendering a straight cut of the
leather, for harness or belt purposes, almost impossible.  Too many,
also, of the.calf skins are spoiled from improper drying; in nearly all
cases the salting of these light skins will be better and less expensive,
than any attempt to dry.
It may be well also for our butchers to understand, that a moderately
large lot of good calf skins will be worth much more at the tanneries
than the small lots usually sent, as to procure first rate uppers a different process is necessary from what can be profitably applied in
small lots. Our supply of tanning matter is abundant; the bark of the
coast oak, the manzanita leaf and branch, the leaf of the holly oak and
bark of the willow are all abundant in localties to afford us ready facilities for years to come. The leather business of California bids fair to
large future increase we have the whole Pacific coast and all its
islands to supply with manufacture of leather; as civilization and commerce spreads over this ocean, the whole demand will be from  California. The use of leather in all civilized countries is advancing faster
than the supply of hides, it is therefore fair to suppose that California
will have almost a monopoly of the Pacific trade, when her leather
manulfacturers.are once able to compete with those from other States
-distance, interest and frieights will give us tile advantage which
secures a steady field for the adventurer of this commerce from our own
manufactories.
The falling off of the supplies of hides, of which shipments have
been so bountifutlly supplied from the South American markets, has
called some attention to substitutes for leather, without, however, as
yet reaching such perfection as to lessen the price of a good article, which
bids fair for many years to bear aii advanced price. As our sale of cattle
now are, a good hide is near ten per cent. of the value of the animal, it
therefore behooves all those engarged in the cattle trade, to not only
use care in their preservation, but to present their skins to the tanners
free from the knife marks by which their value will be decreased when
manufactured into leather.-Alta. 
INDUSTRIAL INTERESTS.
The Drain of Capital from the Iteri?or Cities to San Francisco.
EDITORS UNION:-It appears to me a period has been reached in
the progress of our State and city when it may be well to examine if
we have in action the elements which have in part preated our past
prosperity, and which will accelerate our efforts of the next ten years
that they may hold comparison with the past. I think it will be found
that the falling off of agricultural profits is acting with a great deal of
severity in the business of our river cities, which, with the changes
which are made in mining localities and consequent business, makes
our trade and progress more uncertain than is necessary with the broad
field open to industry and enterprise; not that we have lacked either
of these qualities, but as circumstances have been, their efforts have
not met in all cases with sufficient reward; for with the second great
industrial interest of the State in an unprofitable condition to its followers, all other trades and intersts must more or less suffer with them.
I think it will also be found that the tendency of our capital is to
accumulate almost entirely in San Francisco, leaving but little in the
other cities, not only detrimental to them from lack of concentrated
capital, but firom the superior value it gives to what are called securities in that city, and the lessened comparative rate of interest in which
capital can be obtained on them over securities elsewhere in the State.
We also find the Bay city absorbing every embryo manufacturing
enterprise which interest is already sufficiently large to exert an attractive power on every enterprise of that description, to so great an effect
that San Francisco bids fair to be the manufacturing center, as well as
commercial depot, of the State. At present this attraction is in reality
but that of capital and superior.command of labor: location, and ease
with which raw production can be commanded, are in favor of the river
cities. It is not for our interest to let the Bay city absorb entirely this
great element of wealth and prosperity, if we can by legitimate business enterprise avoid it; and it is not for the interest of the State's
future wealth and prosperity that more than our commercial interests
should be exposed to any of thA vicissitudes which foreign war may
bring upon that city.  In war her harbor will be the first and greatest
prize sought by an enemy's fleet, and as there is seemingly a persistent effort on the part of the majority of the San Francisco press and 
31
population to stop the proper fortification of the State's best harbor,
such attack is so far invited. It is not well that many interests are
there concentrated whose destruction would cause great loss to other
parts of the State. This is preeminently the case in regard to manufacturing enterprises based on the raw product of our fields. It is
therefore not the interest of the agriculturists, or the consumers of
their products after. manufacture, or that of the inland cities, that San
Francisco should absorb the manufacturing interests of the State.
The questions now arise, how shall we eheck the depression in our
own business caused by that of the agricultural, to check the drain of
capital and business from our inland cities to that of the bay, and place
our own business prosperity on a firmer basis than that on which it
now rests.  I think these points may all be arrived at.  The same
energy, public spirit and will that have carried our city through the
calamities brought on us by fire and flood, will enable us to make these
further efforts necessary to insure our city's permanent prosperity.
If our agriculturists  can be induced to turn in part their attention
to those crops which permit after-manufacture, and we make the home
of those manufactures in our own city, we arrive at once at a business
which enlivens the agricultural interest, calls population and business
to our city and chains capital to us. The moment we build up a manufacturing interest in our city, we make a local interest in capital
investment, a regular call for labor, a demand for real estate, and a
concentration of all the raw product of the surrounding country. We
become a larger distributing point in the commercial interests of the
State, with a prosperity which in'peace or war would be comparatively
unchecked. The same interests which in case of the bombardment of
San Francisco would be destroyed, would be unharmed with us.  Although from long peace we have ceased to make these contingencies a
subject of business calculations, present events show us their necessity,
and must have their weight in any permanent investment of capital.
Surrounded as our river cities are with lands which will readily produce the great staples of manufactures and commerce, there is no reason which a combination of capital with industry will not solve, why
the manufactures of wool, flax, cotton, sugar, tobacco, etc., should not
be located with us, and add not only'to our wealth and progress, but
to that of the State.
The Value of Diversified Agricuiltural Products to our Inland
Cities.
EDITORS'UNION:  In my last letter I referred to the great value
to our city business which prosperity among our farming, population
would create. I think there are none who have given the subject
thought, who believe this prosperity will be arrived at by a continuation of efforts applied wholly to cereal crops. Thanks to the painstaking
enterprise of some of our citizens, the culture of hops and tobacco have
been introduced successfully, and doubtless the culture of these productions will now rapidly increase. But these products alone are not sufficient to give all the necessary impulse and profit to our agriculture, 
32
which in its present state of depression will afford an opportunity of re munerative employment to all directlv engaged in this vocation, as well
as those whose business is indirectly connected with its prosperity.
To those who have not bestowed much thought on the difficulties
which beset the California agriculturist, it is easy to say "farm less land
and farm better, use manure and fallow crops, and raise larger crops to
the acre "-forgetting all the while the grand difficulty lies in the cost of
these appliances. With the whole farming or planting season concentrated between November and MIarch, it is difficult to arrange green
crops for manure, or a fallow crop or naked fallow, that does not involve a loss of the use of the land as well as labor for the year. Ours
is a State of high labor values, as well as of high taxes and interest,
which compels the agriculturist to find a paying fallow or intermediate
crop, which is not in all localities easily done, and is, in reality, the
main and most serious difficulty in the success and profits of California
farming.
The planting of flax as a clearing crop might be introduced with
great value to our farmers and the community, if simultaneous with its
cultivation, mills could be erected for the manufacture of burlaps, and
others for the manufacture of linseed oil. Both these operations could
be started with but small outlay of capital-sixteenr to twenty thousand
dollars would buy the machinery of the first, and one-fourth the sum
afford a fair start to the other.
Thle cultivation of the beet root might make another clearingff or intermediate crop, if a sugar manufactory were started in the vicinity.
This would take more capital. but there is no end to the local benefits
such an institution would create.  The culture of the Chinese sugarcane would follow that of the beet root, and experiment would not cease
until a variety of sugar-cane was found capable of acclimature to the
Sacramento Valley.
Our wool crop should be made to afford us more home profit; its
fiber should be twisted before it leaves thb levee, combined with flax,
perhaps with cotton; it is now sent too far away, to be brought back to
us with all the added costs of transport after manufacture, when we
can make good cloths, blankets and carpets for ourselves.  This operation is now stripped of all features of experiment; its profit and the
market for its manufactures is certain. The introduction of its manufacture here adds the dye stuff crop to the farmer's business, gives him
another staple for a product, and adds to the value of his flax crop.
We export our hides, when there is no lack of tanning matter on
every hill in our country.  We pay others for making our shoes and
boots, when their manufacture can be so far accomplished by machinery
that our high rates of labor need not prevent their manufacture here.
Is there any reason why these manufactures cannot be introduced and
made profitable in our city, surrounded as we are by the lands which
best produce the raw material of their use? Why may we not secure
the benefits, the business, and make a portion of it a home here before
it follows the manufactures now started into life in San Francisco?
The wool clip is available now. Promise our farmers a home market
for their flax seed and fiber, and acres of it would be planted, Promise
them a near market for their syrup, and the beet root and sorghum 
would at once become the staples of their crop.  Make a market here
for the refuse of the herd by manufactories, and none would die on our
plains for want of care or shelter. Low priced, bulky products are difficult for us to export with profit. We can manufacture them here
with advantage to their producers, and double advantage to ourselves,
and add the capital to our city's wealth. Such manufactures and the
consequent increase of population their business would give us, and we
should lay the foundations of a business which would increase with the
growth of our own and the adjoining States, and when spread out beyond the home market, find openings sufficient in every port on the
Pacific for interchange of some of our products.
In a State like our own, where capital in large sums cannot be well
spared by individuals, joint stock operations are almost a necessity at
the outset of manufacturing enterprise, for it is too often the ease that
the parties possessing the necessary skill and knowledge have not the
capital, consequently have not the necessary securities to offer, and enterprise remains dormant.   Associated capital appears the readiest
means to overcome this difficulty, and give our city and county its
benefits.
The Culture of Cotton, and the Value of the Tree Cotton to
California.
EDITORS UNION: In my last letter I mentioned the manufacture of
wool and cotton combined. Although our wool is yearly increasing in
abundance, and improving in staple, there has been no positive eflort
to introduce the cotton culture. There are two ways in which we may
have cotton: by production and importation.  If importation is necessary, we can have cheap cotton from the Yanz-tse-kiang and Peru now,
and in the future from Mexico and the South Sea Islands. If we can
produce it, the questions of where and in what manner deserve full
consideration before investment.   Admitting the full force of your
reasoning, in a late number of your paper, as to the expense attendant
on its introduction if slave culture is adopted, I am inclined to think
the same reasons will not hold good against its culture in the tree form.
The California farmers have not very closely follewed rule and precedent in regard to their crops, and our orchardists have found it necessary to depart from all previous rule, and accommodate their plantations to the changed circumstances of soil, climate and labor.
I think the cotton tree, planted in California orchard form, and cultivated as our orchards are cultivated, will flourish through all the Sacramento Valley. The cotton tree of the South Sea Islands grows to about
the size and shape of an eight-year old Bellflower apple tree, and is
covered with its snowy white crop in, I think, the months of June and
July, the mid-winter of that part of thd world. The trees have the
appearance of age, and come into bearing when half-grown.  The samples of cotton carried to the Manchester Exhibition from the Fejee
Islands were considesed the best shown, and rated at twenty-seven
cents. The cotton tree found among the mountains of Peru is similar
in appearance, but not of so good quality. There are some reasons,
howeverf for believing it is one and the same plant, with the difference
3
. 33 
34'
in staple and quality which soil and climate have made. R. C. Kendall, in a lecture before the Cooper Institute, states "he has cultivated
the Peruvian cotton with success in Northern Maryland, and that it
will grow wherever Indian corn will grow;" states the "yield to be
2,000 pounds to the acre, produces its crop the third year, and reaches
its growth in seven years." Have we not in these cotton trees a means
available to permit our culture of cotton even with our present available labor?  Mr. Kendall further states, "that after twenty years experience, that soil has more to do with success in cotton culture than
climate." We have facts in corroboration of this to show its ready acclimation and adaptation to a low range of temperature. In our own
country, the seed of Egypt and Surinam, and later of Mexico, readily
acclimated; and we find its culture successful in Corea, Central China
and Northern India, where the extremes are greater than in any climate in the neighborhood of San Francisco bay. It hybridizes readily, as good planters keep up the quality of their crop by planting with
their ordinary seed some rows of better cotton. We can readily obtain both seed and plant from Peru, which is a cotton good enough for
all our present purposes.  We  can also obtain the plants or seed from
Tahiti, and in time the seed from Fejee, which produces a staple equal
to that of Sea Island. The Peruvian cotton will stand frost; the other
we must experiment on, and gradually accustom it to our climate. In
this I do not apprehend great difficulty, for there are often very cold
nights at the altitude in which it grows.
Planting in orchard form does away with a large share of expense
and risk in its cultivation, bringing the picking to be the main labor and
expense of the crop-one hand to twenty-five acres being sufficient for
the balance of the year.  For all present purposes of our own manufacture, a rapid mode of picking might be introduced in our dry climate. As the fruit of each tree will ripen even, a ready mode might
be found to rake it from their tops into sacks, and as cheaper labor is
afforded in time more care might be used.
If the ideas I have here advanced are correct, in their fruition they
would solve several important points for our interest: a regular staple
of production in a profitable form, which would give new business for
our farmers, manufactures for our cities, commerce to our ships, and
employment, that will not interfere with white labor, for our Chinese
emigration. Sacramento and Stockton are more interested in the correctness of these conclusions than any other points in the State. Personally, I have faith in their correctness.  Having long had knowledge
of the value of the South Sea Island cotton tree, it was with pleasure
I read in Kendall's report on the Peruvian tree a corroboration of my
own views. The question is now, in what mode to best arrive at a test
to the question, if cotton can be grown here to advantage? A legislatire appropriation in favor of'the first one hundred or the first thousand
bales, would soon make it a public matter that would bring forthl good
fruits to our State and city. To keep up our progress the next ten
.years to the same ratio as the past, to render the State's agriculture
profitable and desirable to immigration, to create a business for our
city, to concentrate her capital and population, no means so ready or
%effectual as the introduction of home manufactures  
35
The Development of our Industrial Interests should be the
Policy of our State.                  *
EDITORS UNION:  As our State, from geographical situation; is by
itself and of necessity obliged to rely on its own production, or pay
largely for any outside aid that may be received, the speedy development.of our resources is a matter of such necessity that any legislation
tending to this result, is a measure of the highest wisdom.
During the last ten years, although the statutes of California have
become voluminous, there are not many which directly point to the
development of the industrial interests of the State. Although those
we have are to the purpose, they are insufficient without further judicious legislation to cover the large field which the capacity of our production requires. With a sweep of territory which embraces a capability of all the productions of the temperate zone, and many of those
of the tropics; with a breadth of mining resources which is yet incalculable in value, with a commerce opening out to us as expansive as the
ocean swell which thunders or. our coasts, our State's policy shQuld be
comprehensive, far-seeing and grand, as the interests which are confided to the care of our Legislature.
The development of our State's industrial resources should be the
prominent feature of our policy; through whatever changes of men or
party that for a time have control of oir State Government, this should
be its foremost feature and interest; having the best mind and judgment in the State devoted to its accomplishment, and legislative enactment in its favor of such comprehensive character as will the best
achieve this desirable result.
It is not enough to say, "our progress is great-no people ever made
more in the same time;" for we have only done what might have been
reasonably expected of a population entirely made up of young and
energetic men; for never before was the industrial army of any country composed of such material, and it is for this very reason that our
State's legislation should be different from, and more comprehensive in
its character, than that of any other State of the Union.
While our market was within ourselves, while our production was
only sufficient for our own consumption, until our surplus was obliged
to seek other markets whose standard values are graded by low rates
of labor and a paper currency, active legislation for the State's material interests had not the necessity that now exists for its inauguration.
We have reached a time when the very energy and industry of otur
people is working injury to themselves, in the over-production of articles which cannot be always exported with profit to the producer; and
when sent from our shores at his loss, are a loss to the State, in so
much taken from its fertility and richness without adequate return.
We have had too much of this already; the seal of bankruptcy has rewarded too much of agricultural effort, and too much of our gold has
gone forth to pay paper money prices for what we might have and may
produce for ourselves.
Wise legislation will check this current from our shores, and avert
the evils which are in store for the second great interest of our State,
the maim  pillar of its Government support, and the interest which 
36
attracts the immigrant and skilled artisan to our shores, and which in
incipient efforts has astonished the world with the extent and proTfic nature of our productions.   The end and purpose of all government should be the good of the people, to guide and aid them to those
vocations.which are to their own and the State's best interest.   Our
people generally need but little guidance, but just now the State's aid
may be made a great means of avoiding the disasters which are pressing upon one great source of the State's wealth now, and of adding to
that wealth largely in the hereafter.
Our first legislators would have required superhuman wisdom to
have seen the full effect of their early and constitutional enactments on
a people constituted as the mass of our population, and isolated from
all others. They had neither history nor precedent to guide them, and
we may well be thankful that, in the exciting days of early legislation,
men were found to frame a State Constitution as faultless as our own.
None could then foresee that ten years of our history would pass, and
that, while making unexampled progressive development, the rates of
interest would rule higher than in any other civilized country; that
capital would almost entirely concentrate in the largest city, and that
the active currency of the country would be then too limited for general business purposes. Yet had they foreseen that we should continue
to pay our hard coin for the paper and credit-priced productions of
other States, they would have known this result inevitable, and made
the encouragement of home production a cardinal feature of State
policy, if not of constitutional enactment."  We  here have the pith of
the whole matter.   Stop the flow outward of our gold for goods, and
money becomes plenty.   The means to arrive at this result is such
legislative enactment as will at once encourage the production of all
those crops which are, susceptible of after manufacture, and the encouragement of the erection of every manufacture within the compass
of our production. Do this, and our agricultural interest will receive
a permanent improvement, our material wealth will double, and our
commerce will increase, each day giving new markets for our products
and new wealth to our production.
Individual enterprise has done much, and will do more; but it must
be a matter of judicious legislation now to lighten the depression which
reigns in the agricultural counties, and through them add new life and
scope to the general business interests of' the State.  With a Legislature whose election has been a matter more of patriotism than of party,
we may iiglitly expect liberal and comprehensive statemanship; and if
a policy looking to the speedy development of the  State's industrial
interests is inaugurated in the session of 1862, it will be long remembered as tile most beneficent that has ruled the interests of California. 
37
The Cultivation of Tree Cotton.
EDITORS UNION: -I have noticed several comments on my communication in reference to the cultivation of tree cotton in orchard form
in the valley of the Sacramento.  The gist of them all is embraced in
the comment: "This may all be true, but if so, why has it not been
thought of before?
The cotton of Peru has been known since the Conquest. The present yearly export is about six thousand bales; fifteen hundred bales
were sent across the Isthmus to England last year. The mills at Tepic,
on this coast, have for many years derived part of their supply from
Peru.  Mr. Kendall, whom I gave as my authority for its adaptability
to culture in the United States, delivered his lecture before the Cooper
Institute, at the request of Governor Sprague, of Rhode Island, Banks,
of Massachusetts, and other gentlemen engaged in Northern mnanufactures-seemingly sufficient indorsement of Mr. Kendall-all going to
show that its culture has not been adopted, not from want of knowledge,
but from want of incitement; but as there is no lack of interest in cotton culture now, we shall probably soon hear more from it.
In regard to cotton from the South Sea Islands, its value has been
known to the writer some twenty years; has been known to our Government since the return of Wilkes' exploring expedition, and to the
British Government a somewhat less time.   The following extract
from the report of the Cotton Supply Association, shows the value of
the fiber:
THE  FEJEE ISLANDS. The Committee have received through the
Foreign Office five descriptions of indigenous cotton, which are reported
#y Consul Pritchard to grow wild in these Islands. The plant yields
without intermission for ten, twelve or fifteen years. The value of the
several samples are 7d., 721d., 8d., 9d., lid., Is. and ls. 01d. per pound.
About eighty to one hundred of these islands are inhabited, the total
population being 200,000, 50,000 of whom have been converted to
Christianity. One-half the area of one of these islands would grow
three to four millions of bales of cotton.  In view of these facts, and
being informed that an offer had been made by the native King and
Chiefs of the cession of these islands to the British Crown, the Committee felt it to be their duty to represent to her Majesty's Government
the suitability of the native Fejee cotton to the wants of trade. The
question of annexation was one into which it was not in the province
of the Committee to enter. It was, nevertheless, their obvious duty
in the interest of the cotton trade, and in view of a faithful discharge
of their duty as your executive, to see that a just representation should
be made of the utility of such an addition to our sources of supply.
From no single quarter of the world has such a collection of graduated
qualities been received.
, Even this report did not call forth a movement to its culture, though
scarce 1800 miles from England's Australian colonies. But the excitement in the United States, particularly ill Virginia, in regard to the
John Brown raid, furnished the stimulant; a military officer was sent
to Fejee to report as to their susceptibility of defense; this gentleman
was accompanied by an agent of the Cotton Supply Association. 
38
The result of this commission has been, that a portion of the islands
have been purchased by the British Government. Cotton gins have
been erected at Rewei and other parts of these islnds, and the first
fruits of this enterprise have been lately noticed in a shipment of cotton from Fejee via New Zealand to Great Britain.
The attention of Californians was first drawn to it by an article, I
think, in the Alta California some ten years since, showing it as one of
the means which would eventually create a valuable commerce with
the islands of the Pacific. That point is reached, England has become
alive to the value of this production, so near her Australian colonies,
and with her readiness to further her commercial and colonial interests,
but a few years will elapse before the South Sea Island product will
be a feature of the cotton trade.
The suggestion to cultivate in orchard form occurred while seeking
for argument to show cotton culture here was within the scope of our
tariff labor. To those with whom no suggestion is valuable until backed
up by age and precedent, the statement above made will carry some
relief. Personally, I have faith that in this or similar methods, we
have a key to successful California cotton culture.  I trust the "press
of this State may take sufficient interest in the subject to keep it before
the people, until means are devised to make its introduction and culture
one of the material facts in our State's progress.
The Chinese Question as Connected with our Industrial
Interests.
MESSRS. EDITORS: Our citizens have been so much occupied with
the damage the flood has brought to their doors, that a scheme to deprive our city of a portion of our present, and more of our prospective
business, has seemingly escaped their attention.
The project to sweep the Chinese entirely from our State, has, like
all other public questions, two sides to it; and those who are so earnest
to send them from the State, that they may not interfere with white
men, appear to forget and ignore the existence of the many white men
and their business interests which proft by their presence.
It is difficult to arrive at a correct estimate of the amount of business
they make for our people, but in a rough way, perhaps one-sixth of all
our freighting, boating, teaming and staging may be made by them,
while their purchases of goods, clothing, etc., may possibly be equal to
one-twelfth of the trade. Their value to the ranchmen may be better
estimated. If the 55,000 of them in the State spend but two short bits
a day each for their pork, beef, vegetables and other food, the sum will
amount to $77,000 per week, or $4,000,000 per year —an amount in
itself a very handsome income to our rancheros, and more than thev
received for their whole. export of grain and flour last year.
Now  very few Chinamen are employed on the ranches, except as
cooks; and if we except those employed in some vineyards, probably
not over five hundred have even that employment on farms in the
whole State.  Therefore, the whole of this amount of $4,000,000, more 
39
or less, is the product of the labor of white men. A large portion of
what they consume would not be produced but for their custom, particularly the vegetable crops, and also those corn crops grown in places
far off from market and fed to hogs and cattle before killing. Now the
question is, can our ranchmen afford to lose this business? Can our
laborers, teamsters, freighters, etc., afford to lose the amount of employment this business gives to them? Can we afford to lose the business,
direct and indirect, it gives our city? Can our merchants afford to
have the ranchlimen impoverished to the amount of the loss of this trade?
All these are important questions to answer; they relate to the present,
and come home to our every day business.
Next, in regard to the future of our city.  In a series of articles
written before the flood, I endeavored to show the necessity that existed that we should encourage home manufactures to make business
and capital for our city, and give the diversity of culture to the surrounding country that should be more profitable to our farmers than
grain-raising exclusively had been.  Every argument then used has far
more force now; and the ways and means to bring about this result
should occupy some portion of the thoughts of every business man and
property-holder of our city, and every ranchman on our plains.
It must be patent to those who have given the subject the slightest
thought or attention, that these cultures cannot be made-that these
manufactures cannot>be started-without the possession in some of the
stages of production of an abundant, steady, womanlike labor that a
special Providence has given us in the presence of the Asiatic.
The question now is, shall our ranchmen be deprived of their present
market, and with it also the opportunity of these changes, and increase
of production, a sad and ruinous experience has shown to be necessary?
Shall the transport, trading and commercial business of the State, not
only lose that portion of their present occupation now afforded them by
the presence of the Chinese, with all the produce their labor properly
directed would afford the industrial energies of our people, but can we
afford to lose from our cities, not only the present, but also these prospective benefits? For lost to us, years must elapse before we will have
the command of a labor force of a description that will warrant investment of capital in any enterprise that demands an attendance of moderate priced labor in any portion of its details.
Next, we are called upon to give up the present and prospective benefits to our people and State, because the Chinese are willing to cook,
wash and be scavengers; to hoe grapes and pick berries for five dollars
less per month than a white man? (for outside the mines this appears
to be a short view of the difficulty and the amount of their competition
with white labor). The objection in regard to their females being here
must rest with our own people, as the Chinese are not in the habit of
taking them abroad. In and about Manila there are more than one
hundred thousand Chinese laborers, free emigrants, and but few or
none of their women.
Is this cause enough, or are these causes enough to warrant our
Being deprived-of these present and prospective benefits?
It appears to me there' are no sufficient reasons why they should be
driven from the State. Taxed in the mines they should be; beyond 
40
this, neither policy nor propriety calls for legislative interference in the
business arrangements of our people. They now give employment to
nearly one-sixth of the white laborers in the State, outside the mines;
and they may be made, by judicious application of their services, to
make a five-fold increase in every material interest and commercial enterprise of our people.
Force them out, and much of present labor enterprise must be
checked and seriously injured; the agricultural interest must go backward, for we cannot continuously grow grain only; andour river cities
be content with the divided business which the mines and the impoverished rancheros can afford them, until many years are added to the age
of the present active men of California. 
FUR LABOR INTERESTS.
The Value of Joint Stock Labor Associations.
EDITORS MORNING CALL:-Permit me through your columns to
call attention of some of our friends of the mechanical persuasion to the
value of joint stock labor investments, in this country where capital and
labor rule higher than ill any other. Capital connected with combined
labor can achieve profitably what capital alone cannot. As the miner's
wages and earnings are the point below which the value of labor will
not readily recede, the capitalist cannot, nor will not for years be able
to hire labor at a sufficiently cheap rate to compete with imported fabrics in many articles which might easily be manufactured here with
profit and benefit to our State. It is for this reason that more manufactures are not started here-the capitalist would have to pay too high
rates for the necessary labor to afford him any interest on the capital
invested.  This drawback and risk to the capitalist alone, is a direct
premium where labor and capital are combined in a joint stock arrangement for any one productive or manufacturing business. What
would not pay the capitalist alone intwest, comparative with other
investments, would  give the worker  fair and steady wages, and a
moderate interest on first capital invested, as well as the constant accumulation of capital which success would give.   From the peculiarity
of our position and distance from all sources of manufacturing supply,
freights, time, interest, insurance and commission, act like a tariff or
direct premium on the products of California industry, for the moment
such perfection is reached in any one manufacture that it can compete
in the market with the imported, with all these charges added, virtual
monopoly is achieved for the California article. This warrants success
to every California effort of manufacture persisted in long enough to
be felt in the market against the imported, and is the element of success,
the leverage which will eventually make us a first-class manufacturing
State. This position will be achieved, not by capitalists, but by associations of mechanics and laborers, working in a partnership of united
capital and combined labor. Single, each would struggle long in unrequited toil; united, and strength enough is elicited to defy the world's
competition.  We have among us the necessary science, strength, mechanical skill and genius to accomplish any effort to which the will may
be bent; it only needs direction.  There is scope enough in our home
0 
42
wants and home market for thousands of workers; there is promise
enough in the market the coasts of the Pacific present to us for millions.  For the reasons above given, this country is preeminently
adapted to joint stock speculations of labor and capital. In other countries of abundant capital and low rates of interest, such operations
would be crippled and baffled by masses of capital united against them;
this cannot be the case here.  Labor backed by the mines, is and long
will be the controlling element, interposing inseparable difficulties in
the application of capital alone to manufacturing opergons.  We will
take, for instance, the manufacture of flax, and the only suggestion I
will make for the present, and see the employment the manufacture of
grain sacks alone would give in this connection. The cost of imported
machinery would be trifling in consideration of the magnitude of the
interest involved; all else could be reached by combined labor. Let it
be known a mill would be erected for the manufacture of the flax fiber,
and its cultivation for this purpose and for oil would be immediately
commenced. The fact of starting this one operation would give birth
to numerous others, giving enlarged employment to labor, and lands
now unproductive of interest, benefiting not only the mechanic and laborer but the cause of agriculture.
What the Labor Forces of our State may Accomplish.
EDITORS CALIL:-In my last communication in reference to "Joint
Stock Labor Associations," and their value as a source of gainful employment to individuals, as well as a power in opening up the resources
of the State, I mentioned the manufacture of flax as one of the articles
on which a labor operation might be profitably based. As perhaps first
thought in this reference may not show how much of a business this
might be made, as well as hgw small an amount of capital would be
needed in the commencement, with your permission I will follow the
subject a little further, trusting that some other of your correspondents
may show the value of some of these operations, to which you in your
editorial have referred. In round numbers, California raises 5,000,000
bushels of wheat, and the same number of bushels of barley per annum,
giving a total of 550,000,000 of pounds, to nearly every one hundred
pounds of which a sack is required, or a total of say 6,800,000 yards of
some material in this one item, which at eight cents per yard, gives a
business of $544,000 per year for the material used in the handling of
this one product.' Besides this call for sacks, we have that for corn,
potatoes, peas, beans, wool and ore. There is also a call for sacks in
the commerce of this coast and of the Pacific, which will offset any
second hand use of sacks, making $600,000 per year as the cost to California of this one import, and one which she has the material to manufacture within her own productions. Machines for a mill which would
not only manufacture bagging, but nearly all the coarse flax fabrics we
require, could be obtained at this time in the Atlantic States for, say
$36,00.  Now, as one-third the amount would cover machinery for a
very respectable manufactory, and go far in the manufacture of bagging, 
43
that would be enough to start on. As times are, this could be bought
for one-half cash, the balance secured onr the machinery; now add site,
building, freight and power, whether of water or steam, and you have
the outlay. If joint stock, the ground, lumber, carpenters' work and
power, all could be contributed. The next cash outlay after the purchase of machinery and freight, would be the raw material on which
to work. If flaxseed is raised for oil, the stalk is of small value to the
farmer, and as our agriculturists are just now eager for any product
which will pay them better than grain, no difficulty will exist in procuring the flax fiber. The method of cottonizing flax by pressure and
explosion of stem, has been so far successful that four to five cents per
pound is calculated as the price of this article in New England, only
one difficulty being now in the way of daily use of this material, and
that is the separation of the "short" from the "long" pile a difficulty
now I think in the way of all coarse manufactures.  The mill once
erected, is not confined to this one material or manufacture. Carpets
of mixed flax and cotton and wool would take the place of the coarser
material now imported. With our wool product all are familiar, and
my belief is the day is not distant when, in some measure, we shall all
be familiar with cotton as a California product. The samples of cotton
brought from Visalia show no lack either in soil or climate-all that is
wanted is labor and capital in its production. If this cannot be applied
profitably, there will still be no lack of cotton, for it can be importecr
from Central China at a much less rate than the ruling price of the last
few years of the most common American cotton.  All that is wanted,
then, is the introduction of the cotton-gin, to give us all the raw cotton
required. The true way would be to ship spars and lumber to China,
the vessels returning with cotton, to be manufactured and again reshipped. We will then have commerce, home manufactures and home
production combined, giving profitable employment to many people, in
many different branches of business, brought about by persistent and
united mechanical effort in achieving the first step. We want but a
small manufactory commenced to secure to ourselves the whole labor
and production as well as profit which is involved in the coarse manufactures consumed so liberally by our people, to make a business here
for which capital is now sent away add lost to the State-a benefit not
only to those engaged immediately in their manufacture, but also to the
whole State, in giving new impetus and variety to our agriculture.
Business which will Accrue to California from the Opening
of the Chinese Rivers.
EDITORS  CALL:-Any branch of labor in our State that is connected with commerce, export or foreign market, is more valuable both
to the State and individuals than a production whose market is limited
to our own borders. In my letter number two, I referred to a trade
which might be made with China by the export of spars and lumber,
of which we have abundance, and they comparatively a scarcity, to be
used as a remittance by which to obtain some of their raw productions
for after-manufacture here. If bare cost and freight can be made on 
44
the lumber it is a profit to the State and shipowner, for the State barters a product which has given employment to one class of laborers for
another product which will give employment to another class of laborers; to the-shipowner it is a benefit in freight earned, and to the merchant in the cost of a bullion remittance saved.   But there is other
trade and labor in this connection which is well worth our looking after
to have a share while it is in our power; for in all business the parties
in the trade have advantage over the new comer, and as in the commerce and traffic now springing up in the heart of China, we have an
interest firom our nearness and ability to supply much that is there
wanted, it will be well for our machinists, ship builders, lumber and
founderymen to watch the developments of business now making in that
country. The valleys drained by the great rivers of China are second
only in extent to the waters of the Mississippi and Amazon, and have
the elements of commerce, business and wealth, second only to the commercial interest of the Mississippi. Steam only can develop this interest, and that by a class of boats which we, from situation, knowledge and
material are well qualified to build. Our competitors are wooden boats
sent out from the Atlantic States, and iron boats sent out from England.
Numbers are now on the way out to the Yang-tse-Kiang from both
places, and there is no seeming reason why the investment will not be a
great commercial success. The coal mines at Hankow, six hundred
Vhiles up the Yang-tse, are in a most fortunate position for the full development of the trade of that river. Explorations are now being
made to ascertain the full extent of the steam navigation which the late
Chinese treaties have opened to the enterprise and business of civilized
nations, and it is for the interest of California that we should reap some
of the benefits of the immense commerce destined to grow out of these
movements. There is another opportunity for joint stock labor and
capital associated. The need is fiat bottomed wooden steamers, large
and with side wheels, for the Yang-tse, and stern wheelers for the tribu
taries. They can be built here, loaded with lumber, and at the
proper season sailed across. If not easy to build all the machinery
here, arrangements might be made so that a portion of it might be sent
from England or the United States.  A  uniform class of boats might
be built, for which not only the same machinery might answer, but also
the same sails, which would thus serve for the out passage of more
than one boat. A similar course to that indicated above, would very
greatly lessen the risk as well as increase the profits of the adventure.
If a large class of boats of uniform size were built, in case of partial
wreck, the machinery would do for another hull without any change
whatever, and the same with the smaller boats.  A  model might be
selected for each, which could be safely sailed across an ocean which at
certain seasons affords fair wind. This business is no dream of the
dim distant future, but a matter of the moment. The skilled laborers
of the Pacific coast have only to give this subject attention, to see
what a prize of steady profitable business is within their grasp. The
enterprise, industry, and skill that has done so much, have only to
understand the value of this trade, and our ability to share in all its
benefits and profits, to give to our State the population and increased:
number of consumers so desirable for the benefit of our agriculture. 
45
The Power Joint Stock Association would give the Labor
Interests of San Fr~.cisco.
EDITORS MORNING CALL:-The great moley-power which laboring men wield is hardly appreciated by them. A combitlation of individual effort and capital. for- the transaction of business should be the
rule, not the exception. However small the cash capital with which a
labor association is endowed at the outset, if a portion of the weekly
wages or earnings is added to its strenth, the accumulation of its capiital will be made faster than any profit can be made on capital invested
without the labor partnership. From the building of the Tower of
Babel to the works in our Northern mines, combined labor has accomplished feats to which capital alone, with all its strength, is unequal.
Even the cotton operatives of Great Britain, against the pressure of
low wages' and very low current rates of interest, have combined their
earnings and labor, and the erection of many a cotton factory in Lancashire, during the past five years, attests this power and ability. The
movement now making to establish a Saving Fund, to be used only in
forwarding the humble efforts and small beginnings of combined labor,
if successful, is a stride toward making our State, in our own time, the
center and seat of manufactures for the whole Pacific. Sweep all its
coasts, from Cape Horn to Behrings Straits, back again to New Holland; reckon all its islands and countless population, and see if there
is a locality which combines the elements of soil, climate, water-power
and production possessed by the American future of the Pacific coast;
where else the people who combine the necessary elements of skill,
industry and energy, with the security which equal laws and good government afford? Australia alone can be thought of, and were all
other advantages with her as with us-and they are not-locality
alone would decide the question in our favor. Our skilled labor has
only to combine and commence-the success, the extent of the market
for their manufactures is certain; its profit unmistakable.  Push forward your Society. If each mechanic and laborer of San Francisco
contributes on the average but twenty-five cents per week, its capital
at the end of each year will not be far from $250,000; if one dollar
per week is contributed, the year's accumulation of capital will be
something over one million of dollars.  That sum judiciously used in
backing labor enterprises will in three years, with its accumulations,
double the avenues of employment of slilled labor in our State.  The
Penny Banks established in England are remarkable examples of the
amount of capital that can be accumulated from small savings; and
however small the sum each mechanic will resolve weekly to contribute, the aggregates entered on their pass-books will secure capital sufficient for the object of the enterprise. Let its directors plan the scheme
with a double object-not only for the furtherance of mechanical
effort, but to encourage the savings of small sums. Men who begin to
save are seldom in need; encourage our boys to take an interest by
their little deposits, and the habit will not leave them; their little passbooks, if they show but "bit" items, will be an encouragement of economical business efforts to them. Our young Californians need all the
wholesome checks we can throw around them; from them the menof 
46
this coast are to be made, and every good impulse we can use to bend
their energies in a right 4kection is a necessity to our future prdperity and good government.  In whatever light the movements toward
joint stock labor and lean associations can be viewed, it is only that of
benefit to individuals and to the community.  "Call" close attention
among your readers to this subject; set forth its advantages in their
true and most varied light, and I doubt not the increase of mechanical
labor and populatioqn in our State will be great enough to use up all
the surplus products of our agriculture.
What Associated Labor has Accomplislhed.
EDITORS MORNING CALL:-In view of the movement making to
establish a Loan Association for the development of mechanical and
manufacturing industry, working men may as well take into consideration not only their power to help themselves, but also the necessity
that exists that they should carefully plan for such a state of affairs as
will ensure them good wages and steady employment in the future. I
think reasonable doubt may be felt whether capitalists will be, for
years, ready to invest in very many enterprises that would pay and be
remunerative to the workmen if the capital were also theirs.  The capitalists will be likely to wait until the pressure of labor applicants in
every avenue of employment now open has reduced the general wages
of all classes of labor to a scale far lower than the present, before any
manufacture that requires a large employment of hired labor will be
ventured upon by them. Such being the case, the workers of our
State can not only provide against the inevitable tendency to lessen
wages, which every fresh applicant for present employment exerts, but
also to open such avenues of occupation as will for years make useful
the surplus of emigrants, so that their desire of employment will not
too far interfere with workingmen's interests. The easiest, in fact the
only way to achieve this result, is to provide such employments, such
manufactures or production as have not only a Californian, but an outside market, which will render such business operation, under whatever
pressure of competition, comparatively safe.  The  Loan Associations,
properly managed, will achieve this result, and no partnership of industrious, skilful workingmen need despair or hesitate in the manufacture
of any article necessary to our daily wants, even if such help be not
afforded them; current rates of interest on capital, as well as distance
from all other sources of supply, are in themselves a premium on their
industry which will ensure a profitable result. If in England, under
the pressure of immense capital, skill and science in manufactures, carried to its utmost limits, workingmen can combine together and manufacture on their own account, not only to make wages but to secure
handsome profits beyond them, how much more may be expected in a
country of such high wages and limited manufacturing facilities, as in
California.   The success of the "Rochdale Association," a pioneer
joint stock labor society, is an example to whichl our Californian mechanics should give earnest attention.  The association was established 
47
in 1844 with a capital of $140. The first year the associates divided
$16# In 1857 the capital amounted to $75,710 and their division of
profits $27,350, or near thirty-six per cent. on the capital after all expenses were paid. Now, as before said, if such result is arrived at
where competition in manufacture is pushed to its utmost, where lowv
prices of labor, abundance of capital and low rates of interest rule,
what may not be done in a country where there is no competition and
where labor and interest are higher than in any other country on earth?
Combine your mechanical skill, make yourselves strong by a partnership of intelligence, leave a portion of each week's earnings in the concern as capital, and who can doubt the success of the effort. the
influence you will exert, or the wealth you will acquire? It is for the
workingmen of California to say if she shall in the next ten years take
a front rank as a manufacturing State. It is for the farmers of this
State to make their own market for their productions. Let them but
make it a fixed rule only to buy and only to use the manufactures and
productions of our own workmen, and their home market for surplus
production will bring profit to every branch of agriculture.
Will the Prosperity of the California Workingmen Continue?
EDITORS CALL:-For ten years the workingmen of this State have
received a remuneration for their labor unexampled in the history of
any other country. It is important that some consideration should be
given the present circumstances of the State to form some estimate of
how long this prosperity to the workingman may be continued.   The
result of this ten years' labor and progress is that the prices of every
article necessary to daily life and consumption have fallen below that
of most any other civilized country, and in fact nothing has maintained
its high rate but labor and interest.   The present prosperity of the
workingman throughout our city, from the amount of employment extensive building is giving, may keep them  for a time from looking
beyond the city for the changes in their business either for better or
worse. But as the prosperity of the city is dependent on that of the
country, the distress now affecting the agricultural and pasturing counties must soon affect them.   It will be first felt in a lessened call for,
and a lessened value of, labor throughout all the agricultural counties,
forcing more applicants on other sources of employment; next, the
falling off of the city business, from the absolute poverty of the agricultural and cow counties, will lessen business and the demand for stores,
buildings, labor, etc., here.   Our State population is so small that the
difference between one hundred thousand of our inhabitants being
liberal buyers, and the same number reduced to the purchase only of
those articles which absolute necessity requires, can but have an injurious effect on the business and consequent call for labor of all kinds
throughout our city. The agriculturists and stockmen of the State are
as a class becoming too much impoverished to employ the amount of
labor which has been their custom for the last few years, and firom
sheer inability cannot be as good customers to thle city.  First the 
48
mines and next the agricultural districts have been not only the points
which have fixed the standard value of labor, but have been alo the
reservoirs that have swallowed up the surplus hands which every
steamer or emigrant strain has brought to our State. Now it is easy to
be seen, if there is not prosperity in the agricultural districts and a
prompt and paying call for laboring men there, a surplus of men will
be thrown on to every other occupation, and not only will a difference
be made in regard to farm labor, all the trades will feel it as well; the
same causes which lessen the labor call will lessen that for building
and new material of all descriptions; the farmer's economics will be
forced to embrace every article he can possibly exist without. To my
mind this state of things points unmistakably to a lessening in all labor
values. The workingmen themselves, and only the workingmen, have
the power to remedy this state of affairs, and provide that not until a
distant future will their wages be lessened.   For the reasons I have
given in former articles, the capitalists will not, can not, help them; it
would be but folly to make the attempt, with the example of loss and
ruin which has overcome the large majority of those who earliest invested their capital in the building of this State. We have reached a
point when it is necessary for each worker to examine his own capability, and if his own trade or business does not satisfactorily remunerate him, to see if another will not do it; what the multiplication table
is to further progress in mathematics, what the Latin language is to the
would-be linguist, a good trade well learned is to him who would acquire another.   Some of the leading and most successful men who
have figured in our small community have made their mark —not in
the first trade they learned, but in others, to which the first was but
the drill and stepping-stone.  Let our mechanics and workingmen out
of profitable employment combine in twos and threes and dozens in the
prosecution of those vocations and manufactures which have no home
or but slight foothold in our community-let the one who has knowledge teach the rest, resolutely leave part of this labor as capital, and
success is certain.   Our agricultural community, from necessity, must
change their habits of culture and product; if the workingmen are wise
they too will change, before necessity absolutely compels them. A
change now will command more profit than later, when wages are forced
to a lower point than they are now.   Each man possesses some peculiar ability beyond his fellows; combine these qualities, make capital
of them, and you will be stronger in your industry and application than
any bought genius or muscle; not a trade, manufacture or production
is beyond the reach of combined harmonious labor. If example is
necessary beyond the miracles our mining associations have accomplished, look at the paper you are reading, one of the best newspaper
properties in the State, entirely the result of the combined energy and
industry of a few practical printers. If there were no other field than
that of manufactures of articles of every day use, there would be business sufficient for all who now seek employment; but beyond these are
the productions of the soil, needing only skilled industry to give them
not only a commercial value, but giving stimulus and profit to every
hand of agriculture. 
49
Openings  of New  Bu,siness for Associated  Labor.
EDITORS CALL:-In my last letter I referred to the occupations
and employments that might be developed into life and business activity by a better attention to the resources our agricultural wealth
opens to us.   All know that our bullocks are being slaughtered for
their hides and tallow, and that beef is as cheap here as in any part of
the civilized world.   The use of preserved meats in cans is not only
yearly increasing in the navy and merchant service, but in all those
places within the tropics where beef and mutton are of poor quality.
In 1847 the putting up of preserved meats was commenced in Sydney,
New South Wales, by an American who-had not a previous knowledge
of the business, but who by careful industry worked his way to an excellence of preparation and production, which has given the preserved
meats from New South Wales a welcome'market, not only afloat, but
throughout India and China. With our cheap, good meat, and continuous supply of vegetables, why may we not have a share in this business? The California salted meats, when well put up, are in demand
in the ports across the Pacific, and of a right we should furnish their
whole supply, for cheap material at the outset, freshness and distance
are in our favor.   The objection is raised, our climate is not cold
enough, the meat does not cool off well.  We think that objection can
be met with buildings constructed for the purpose; high tiled roof; hollow walls, will perhaps meet it; if' not, the h.ollow of the wall and roof
filled with charcoal.   If this does not meet the case, put an ice-house
at each end of the building, and it will be cold enough to freeze the
bullock if alive. And while on the bullock, it will be well to follow
his hide, and see what our shoes and boots, some 1,500,000 pairs per
annum, cost us.   The hide is sold to a merchant who makes either a
profit or commission for buying; it is shipped, paying a freight and insurance, and losing five months interest on its cost; it is then sold to a
tanner in the Eastern States, and again *pays a profit or commission.
The tanner makes his labor and profit and sells to a leather dealer,
who sells with his profit to the shoe manufacturer, who makes his labor
and profit in selling to a shoe dealer, who again sells to the buyer for
a California house paying him also commission; the California house
on its receipt pays a freight and insurance, and with all these added
profits on a California hide, presents it to you for sale in the shape of
boots or brogans. Look at the amount of soap we import, and the use
the same bullock could be made of in its manufacture; and the same
with glue, neat's-foot oil, etc.  Is there no chance here for a combination of capital and labor, and a profitable employment for many thousand people?
Another item of our over-product: Fruit, of those varieties which
sell best from cans, is as abundant and cheap here as any place. Success in putting it up is no experiment; it has been done successfully
this season; the market for preserved plums and peaches is world
wide; the outlay and capital beyond labor is but a trifle in comparison
of the extent of business. The manufacture of syrup from the Chinese
sugar cane, perry from pears, and drying apples and peaches, are each
and all businesses which will pay labor combined with small capital,
4 
50
but more or less difficult to make profitable with hired labor at current
rates.
Mr. Editor, I have sent you these letters that I might have a chat
with the large class of our citizens your paper claims to represent. My
personal-interest in the matter must be by this time apparent to your
readers.   As a farmer, my interests are identical with the working
interests of our State.   My own business as a producer cannot be
prosperous unless prosperity reigns with theirs; my product will not
command sales unless they have money to buy; they cannot have
money, nor command the present rates of wages, unless new avenues
are open to their labor. I am satisfied this will not for many years be
done by capital alone, but must be done in such way as I have
proposed in this series of letters, where the worker independently
helps himself.   Once he moves and is successful, capital will move
to him;  but capital will not move alone.   And  the same  with
the farmer; he, too, must change his product, and furnish the
craftsman with the raw materials of the manufactures and consumption required in our daily life, or the prosperity so prevalent
in the early days of California agriculture will be clouded by a loss of
capital as well as profit. I had hoped my letters thus continued would
have drawn out an expression of opinion on the subjects which I have
treated, from some of your correspondents who are familiar with the
manufactures spoken of, as well as interested in their success.   If the
seed thus sown is "on good ground," and will bring forth a crop in an
earnest effort to benefit, and a better understanding of the material
interests of the State, in the general revival a new impulse will be.
given to that of agriculture.
f
0 
OUR AGRICULTURAL INTERESTS.
Necessity of a Diversity of Crops.
FEDITORS ALTA:-I have read the communications of your corre spondents "Farmer" and "Level," on the difficulties of Californian
agriculturists, under the present rates of labor, and although I know
them to be practical men, having a full experience in the daily em ployment of laborers, I trust they will take no offense when I state
their views do not meet all the exigencies of the case. A lower price
.of labor will go far towards making grain-growing profitable, but to
make it profitable in proportion to the interest of money in other in vestments, a fall of fifty per cent. in the value of labor will be neces sary. This great decrease in the wages of laborers cannot be looked
for while the miner's labor is the standard by which all other labor is
governed. Therefore, we must look to some other means which will,
with a lessened labor account make capital invested in agricultural op erations pay a fair interest. I think it will be found that when the
farmers' gross sales are much less than thirty dollars per acre, the
farming districts are not prosperous, store debts and interest accounts
accumulate, and when sales run down to twenty dollars or less per
acre, the constable and sheriff do the best business of the district which
often suffers under this infliction. At present prices, it takes a thirty five bushel crop to reach the first condition, while a succession of light
crops soon works out the second.
The sum of our experience is that the farmer who raises in the
average less than thirty bushels of wheat per acre, cannot follow his
business profitably at the figures at which wheat is now required for
the export trade. A short crop and low prices, combined, burns the
candle of farmners' finances at both ends, and few have length enough
to reach over for the good time coming, which every one, groaning
under present loss, naturally expects. If you doubt my conclusions,
,examine the records and see the amount of mortgage made on farm ing lands within the last two years, and the amount of foreclosures
and attachments will convince the most skeptical that it is only on
lands of remarkable fertility, coupled with fortunate seasons, that thei
farmer who relies on grain growing exclusively, can hope to escape
with his original investment.  Of course, general remarks like these
apply not to one season or two, or to any particular district; but to theus
0
I 
52
average of agricultural investment in the State; the accident of a rain,
more or less, or a north wind, early or late, may make the difference
between profit and ruin. We have seen a district prospering while the
rest of the State was suffering. Even within the last two years, the
farmers of certain localities have prospered, while their neighbors,
not ten miles distant, have been ruined; a fresher and more retentive
soil saved the one, while want of moisture at the proper season ruined
the others. The same experience would show that those who are now
prosperous from a full crop, will in their turn be crippled by the accident of seasons as their soil gets shorn of its large productive power.
The first impression would be to cultivate smaller farms, manure and
cultivate better.
The experience of all large grain-growing districts is, that the large
farmers can grow it the cheapest, and if the records are again examined, it will be found that many a small farmer-economical, painstaking, industrious men-only hold the present shelter of their families by virtue of the homestead law.  If the farmer manures, a positive outlay of five dollars, or more, per acre, is at once made, with a
prospective yearly outlay of one dollar per acre for weeding. If he
tries to arrive at the same result by a green or corn crop, the most he
need expect is a new dollar for an old one, on his labor, and a loss of
one year's rental.  Whether he tries to enrich his land bya green crop,
of naked fallow, his reward will certainly come in an added yield of.
ten bushels per acre in his next wheat crop, but the addition of ten
bushels to his crop the second year, at current prices, will hardly pay
the outlay and interest on his labor of the previous year.-To keep
up the character of our exports, large lots of uniform quality are required; these can only be arrived at by the cultivation of large farms.
The experience of those who have invested capital in large farm operations, does not warrant its continuance. The march of the farmers
is not entirely arrested; there are many more yet to throw themselves
into the breach, and doubtless very many will pass safe over the bridge
of improvement which has bankrupted their predecessors. But the
tendency is still the same to cripple and discourage the agricultural
interests of the State, and lesson our power of export. The question
is, shall the evil be allowed to grow until it reaches this point, or shall
immediate remedy be sought for and applied?
Now, AIr. Editor, I do not want to be misunderstood. Although we
do not now export grain with present profit to the farmer, I believe
that the time will be when California flour, understood and appreciated,
will in tropical) climates be sought after as Haxall and Gallego have
been; that the lower grades will sell on the Asiatic coast; that these
markets and those of the islands of the Pacific will take all our surplus
But it is with the present we are dealing; the demands of CalifornianD
labor and interest are great.  The men now engaged in developing them
agricultural resources of the State, are of too much importance to its
future wealth and present prosperity, to be allowed to suffer long under
evils which a better understanding of their position and resources and
somewhat of united action would bring about.  Diversity of crop and
determined encouragement of home manufactures will bring about this
result.  We want population; but we-must find profitable- employment 
53
for them. We want a home market for agricultural productions, which
we can only have by encouraging home labor and home manufactures.
All want our gold, but we cannot keep it unless we resolutely resolve
to produce and manufacture more from our soil and of our own product. We have accomplished wonders, but not a tithe of what we
must and can accomplish.
The vineyard interest is yet in its infancy, and it will be some years
before we will feel its additions to the capital of the State; and so of
the culture of the olive, almond and other plants in which the growth
and returns are slow.  The need is of those crops which will give a
more rapid return for less present outlay. Of these the hop, tobacco
and flax look favorable. The experiments heretofore made in their
culture heave been successful; each has had the advantage of commanding more than a home market. In some shape we must grow our own
sugar. Legislative aid, generously given, must call forth cotton, and
cottonized flax, not only in the staple but in the manufacture. New
operations are attended with great risk everywhere, but nowhere
greater than in our State; and where so many interests will be benefited and so much added to our State's wealth, legislative aid is legitimate, and, in the present state of the agricultural interests, absolutely
necessary. A portion of our agricultural labor should be diverted
from grain-growing into into other channels, a home market made for a
larger portion of our cereal crops, when prices would not recede below
the cost of production.  It is the duty of our legislature to encourge
the rapid development of those staples which require much outlay of
capital, and it is the duty of every farmer, which he owes to himself and
the State, to add to, or so far change his culture that he will not wholly
rely on a cereal crop. Until this is done, I do not believe the agriculturists of this State, as a class, can be prosperous. Of course this is
an individual opinion; if I am wrong, show me where, for I have but
one interest, and that is agriculture.
Depression of the Farming Business.
EDITORS ALTA:.-In my last communication I attempted to show
the absolute necessity that exists that the farmers of our young  State
should pursue a more diversified culture. I think our agriculturists
have only to give this matter attention, to discuss the subject in all its
bearings, to become not only alive to its importance, but also to realize
the prospective bad position in which the mass of farmers in the State
are likely to be placed, unless a speedy change for the better takes
place in their business. It is time for the farmers not only to ask but
to ascertain clearly why, with an increasing population, and an export trade equal to seventy-five medium clipper loads per annum, with
better tools and culture, better roads and facilities of shipment, that improved farming lands have steadily decreased in value for the last three
years. We must ascertain clearly why so many improved farms are
offered for sale; why the mortgages on record have increased four 
a
54
fold; and why the Sheriff's office has become the lucrative business in
many of the agricultural counties.
He will find, while we raised only sufficient grain for home consumption, and none to export, the whole agricultural community was
prosperous; the moment the necessity of export to distant ports commenced, a decline in this prosperity was apparent-not striking, at
first, as the accident of the Crimean war and short crops in Europe
gave such price here that over-production of cereals did not appear to
be an evil or a detriment to the agricultural interest. Where thought
was given, lessened freights, better tools and a cheapened labor and interest were calculated to offset a lessened price, so that there was no real
calculation that the value of grain would be reduced below the cost of
production with profit. That none of these anticipations have Seen realized to a sufficient extent to leave present profit to the farmer, very few
engaged in farm operations will admit.   On examination it will be
found, that all those who achieve profit at this time in grain growing,
are those who have fresh or remarkably productive soils, or are so situated with moisture near the surface, as to be independent of timely
rains. The mass, however, on dry lands, or those often cropped, are
quite ready to leave the grain crops for something better; at least, those
who have teams and tools left with which to operate.
I doubt even with a much lessened labor account, we can compete
with the low-priced labor of countries nearer market in the production
of cereals, unless there is a reduction in interest and taxes in a far
greater ratio. Our farmers pay an interest six times exceediing the interest paid by farmers of old England, and four times more than is paid
by the New England farmers.  The taxes of some of our agricultural
counties are one half as much as paid by the whole State of Vermont
or Rhode Island. The labor account is three times that of the best
farm labor in England, five times that of Germany, and seven times
that of Russia, yet when we export grain we have to compete with
those countries.  I admit the climate and the soil give us advantages of
out-door labor, and use of machinery, that lessens the comparative cost
of our productions, but not enough to contend against the advantages
other countries possess, in ordinary seasons, when neither a short crop
or a war give an extraordinary stimulus to price. The interest of our
farmers is to grow a more varied and a less bulky crop, to resolutely
lessen their labor account, to secure more favorable interest by the
establishment of Savings and Loan Societies in every agricultural county,
to make a home market by giving preference to California manufactures,
and, by more carefully selected Supervisors and legislators, lessen their
taxes. All this and more must be done before we can again have what
is so desirable to the State-a body of men profitably and contentedly
engaged in agriculture.
t
0 
55
Disadvantagoes under which the California Farmer Prosecutes
his Business.
EDITORS ALTA: -In my last communication I referred to the hiol
rates of taxes in the agricultural counties, and as the representatives
from the farming and commercial districts bid fair to be in the majority
in the coming Legislature, it may do no harm to remind those most
interested that both the agricultural and cow counties are becoming too
much impoverished to longer pay more than their proportion of the
State expenses.  A tax becomes slightly onerous when it amounts to
twenty per cent. of the farmer's net earnings, and a heavy burden
when his year's labor does not net the amount, and it has to come from
his capital or become a debt, yet the last and present year's taxes are
in this position to many of the farmers of the State.  Under this stake
of things, a reduction is absolutely necessary, and if the State's burdens are evenly distributed, the reduction may be made even after the
war tax is added to the amount necessary for an economical administration of the State's business. One of your city papers lately called
attention to the number and amount of laws enacted for our welfare,
or misfortuue; they might have also called attention to the number of
courts held per year for their administration. Seven or more courts a
year are held in many of the agricultural counties; what with jury
duty and calls as witness, the nonlitigant farmer will be happy to escape
with less than two weeks of his time per year consumed in their attendance. Three, or at the most, four courts per year would do the whole
business, and their sessions might be managed so as not to interfere
with either planting or harvesting. A week from work at either of
these seasons is something more than a week's labor lost; it may and
often has cost a bad planting of the crop in winter and shelled grain
in the harvest. This loss of time is a growing evi], as few judges or
attorneys calculate rightly the value of a farmer's time in this country
of high and uncertain labor.
Now that the profit of farm life and labor has come down to such
close figures, that one-fourth of a cent on grain, or five dollars per acre,
more or less, is the sum total of the farmer's gains, it behooves him to
watch these trespasses upon his time the more earnestly, as he not
only has to lose more time than necessary, but to pay in taxes the
cost of the machinery by which the trespass is made.  And while examining into this matter, another in the same connection may as well have
their attention, to see if, in its action, it is not more burdensome on
them than on any other class of business men in the State. The present attachment law, made to prevent the too sudden movements of
unscrupulous traders, who might wish to travel on the proceeds of unpaid-for goods, is rather a harsh measure by which to collect a debt of
a farmer, who, from the nature of his vocation, is a fixture which, in
very few instances, can be made locomotive without sufficient warning
for all his creditors, who, in ninety-nine cases in the hundred, are all
within his own township. We will suppose, for any reason, a merchant
is attached: his case is immediately examined by a jury of creditors,
and their verdict clearly shows whether the attachment is the result of
necessity, malice or timidity; if loss is made, it is known whether it is 
56
by accident, misfortune or fraud; whatever settlement or arrangement
may be made, the whole community of merchants know and understand the case. Honesty, fair dealing and integrity has its full reward
in a renewed business, and fraud its punishment in a straightened credit.
No so the farmer, if once attached he seldom recovers; in most cases
he has but one large creditor, and that the storekeeper-the balance
are his hired hands and dependents, who, from habit, nature and education, looksnot to cause, only to effect; and as in most cases they lose
their wages, the farmer's future credit with that class is completely
wrecked.  The instances of farmers being able to profitably resume
business after having been attached, are few and far between.   The
fact that work hands lost money is so vividly remembered, that good
service afterward is difficult to secure.  The time usually taken for
farmer's attachment is when nearly through threshing, before the grain
is hauled off and sold, the moment when he has the most hands, and
most debts, and is nearest the means of paying them.  If the first attaching creditor is satisfied with a levy on the grain, in the course of
an hour all the rest of his available means will be seized by the next
one.  He is then in the web, subject either to the mercy or malice of
the first creditor.  In the meantime, his hands stopped from work, without security or pay, will receive or care for no explanation or result of
the business that does not settle their accounts; there is no such thing as
renewal or extension from them. Nor should there be, for so long as
a farmer is indebted for his labor account, so long as the last dollar is
not paid, hlie cannot hire reliable men or secure good service.
Thus, while the merchant can, with lessened means, go on with his
business securely on credit, in the full measure of correctness of past
transactions, the farmer, it will be. found, is reduced at once to a cash
basis, with a year ahead before he can expect to realize from another
crop. The law, as now in force, is unequal, and to my mind should be
changed, so that the first attaching creditor should attach for all; in
that case, covetousness, timidity or malice would not work unnecessary
mischief. If the law as now written is necessary fol the security of the
mercantile business, then it may be modified where it reaches the agricultural.  Our farm and farmers are too valuable to our State, too
great an element in the progress and success of all other business, to
be more at the hazard of utter bankruptcy than any other vocation in
the State. While the present system of cropping continues, bringing
the whole receipts of the fatrm at the annual harvest, there will be danger, so long as the present attachment law continues, that a small indebtedness may bring ruin to a household.  The agricultural business
of this State has, for some years to come, to be at a low scale of profit;
the farmer will have to use extraordinary diligence and economy to
make sales and expense account balance;. he can bear no higher tax,
either in money or time, than is absolutely necessary for the good government of the community; and while thus closely pressed by the results
of his legitimate business, no chance that he can insure against, by
judicious legislation, should be lightly estimated. Our State's fiture
wealth and the well being of' our whole community is dependent on that
of our agriculture. 
57
The Value and Cost of Farm Labor.
EDITORS ALTA:-I come now to the matter of farm labor.  With
some  of the points made  by your correspondents "Farmer" and
"Level" I cordially agree; with others I do not.   That we have been
paying too high is very certain; but as long as the mines pay one dollar
per day to the hand, that we shall get farm labor very much below
present rates is not so certain, for the reduction of labor must be very
great to make grain-growing, for export, profitable, while the other
drawbacks to this business remain unchanged.
So far as my observation goes, the class of men offering for hire in
the farming districts the last year was far superior to that of any
former year.   There has been marked improvement in the character
of farm hands in the last four years, and there has been less difficulty
in selecting steady, available men for the different employments of the
farm. There has also been a greater freedom from disease brought
about by dissipated habits, as well as a greater inclination to steady
employment.  The desire of change which pervades the minds of
laboring men in this State is another evil with which the farmer has to
contend. It would seem as if there was a positive dislike of nineteen
laboring men out of twenty to hire for any term of time except-at rates
of wages ruinous to the employer. This works evil for both partiesunder constant uncertainty, the employer lays out as little work as
possible, thus immediately lessening the chance of employment to the
laborer.
I have given some attention to the effects of these changes within
the last eight years.   But a very small percentage of the single men
have bettered themselves; most of them are still at hard work without
accumulation.   The married laborers have done better, and in nearly
every instance, after starting on their own account, have added to the
savings previously made. A very reliable class of labor has been had
from those who have used the high wages of California to pay off mortgages on homesteads and farms'in other States, leaving the results to
their'labor here, while its profits have gone to the benefit of other communities; but it is a standing advertisement in each of these communities that steady labor reaps a rich reward in our Golden State.
What are usually called smart hands are not so profitable in numbers, for gang labor, as on farms where only one or two hands are
kept. Good, reliable men could be had all through the last winter for
twenty dollars per month.   The class of hands hired at this rate were
suitable to be worked in gangs, or under the eye of the master; and it
is hardly desirable for the State that the wages of the workingman
should, for the present go below this figure. The wages of extra hands
during the winter, were from $25 to $30 per month.   The same class
of men have been hired through the harvest at $30 to $35 per months
but as there is in harvest less opportunity to make a choice, the inferior
-hands get much more in proportion than in winter.
So far as my observation goes, there is little profit to the grain
farmer in hiring Chinese labor, unless the difference in cost is at least
ten dollars per month, the Chinaman to find himself. On all -hard
work they are behind the most ordinary white labor, the proportion 
58
being against them as eight to ten. Of course, there are cases where
grain is spoiling for the want of binders, when anything must answer that
will work; the farmer's best economy then is to put in enough of them.
But on light work they are even with the white man, and there is great
economy in their use in all such operations P weeding, hoeing, fruitpicking, etc.   They have one good quality, which every farmer and
farmer's wife will appreciate-they do not grumble at the cook.
The Chinamen can be hired at from twenty to twenty-five dollars
per month, finding themselves; fifteen in winter and spring, and twenty,
at midsummer, would be, as things are, their fair valuation-in all
cases finding themselves.   The Digger is profitable in harvest at his
regular tariff of one dollar per day, and, like the Chinamen, is good in
the milk-yard.   Farm  mechanics, gardeners, dairymen, etc., have,
during the past year, commanded from $35 to $60 per month, varied
as to capability, time and length of service.   There has been no difficulty in securing excellent men for the least of these figures, where
steady work has been given.  The custom of requiring all work hands
to give a month's notice before leaving has been introduced on some
farms with most excellent effect.   "Full notice or no pay" is the balance-wheel which makes steady, harmonious work.   The proprietor
has no sudden calls for extra help or money.   I recommend, after full
trial, its general adoption.   It steadies the gang, and does not permit
Fraser river or other excitements to bring strikes for higher wages or
ruin to the crops by stampedes, because the table or the work does not
suit.   All work should be laid out for gangs, in whole days or half
days. There are always one or two clear-headed men in a gang who
make no delay in shifting from job to job; use them on all business requiring fractions of days, see if the cost of each job as completed,
agrees with the estimated outlay, and the farmer is in a fair way to
make the most profit which can be made above wages in the present
state of our agriculture.
Amount of Capital necessary in Agriculture.
EDITORS ALTA:-We come now to the capital engaged in agriculture. I. think it may be fairly estimated that the improved farming
lands of the State-that is, lands on which the fences are of decent construction, and the shanty of the first settler developed into a house; one
on which the work animals have the luxury of shelter, and cattle are
not compelled to starve for the want of fodder-have cost their owners
in cash or labor forty dollars per acre. The small farms usually have
more team in proportion than the larger ones, which is offset by the
greater cost of implements on the large farms, so that fifteen dollars
per acre will be a fair estimate of the capital in the labor prices of the
farm; add five dollars per acre as the cash capital, and we have a starting point from which to take a view of farmers' labor and profits.
The farmer in the light lands has an advantage in planting, from the
greater,ease with which his land may he cultivated; and in harvest, on
the sandy soils, he does not find the binding of his grain a necessity; 
59
the difference in his favor has been equal to about three dollars per
acre, offset by a shortened season and lessened weight and uncertainty
of crop in the average of years.  So far as my observation goes, the
lessening of crop in steadily cultivated lands, without fallow, or manure,
or rest, is equal to two and a half or three bushels per year-greater,
of course, on thin soils. A fallow or a green crop has a wonderful
effect on worn lands, one such rest bringing up the crop nearly to the
original standard; but how long the effects of the fallow will be felt,
observation does not yet show.
The reports of many years' cultivation of the same piece of land
with undiminished crops those reports, too, seemingly well authenticated-have been a great injury to California farming; they have been
generally credited, and the lessened yield has been laid to season, when
it should have been laid to excessive cultivation without change of crop.
I have taken some pains to search out the truth of these cases of extreme fertility.  In some, I have found the lands were so situated that
a coating of alluvial was made by overflow every extremely wet win'ter, or the locality was such, they received a coating of manure from
the wash of the hills severely cropped by cattle.  In other cases, the
springs were very near the surface, causing for ages a large yearly deposit of vegetable matter. This last is an important consideration. The
want of much of the California land appears to be the vegetable and
not the mineral requirements of the plants; want of moisture has prevented more than one annual crop, which has been generally hurried
off in the fall, and the ashes scattered by the strong winds which follow
the fires. The frost is not heavy enough to affect the soil beyond the
surface; the fires are not great enough to more than calcine the most
exposed particles.
Perhaps, lherein, we have the explanation that, in many cases, deep
plowing is not profitable-the soil exposed being too crude to furnish
food for plants-needing years of exposure to the elements before it
assumes the fertility of the soil rashly turned under. (I would here
remark, that when any of my brother farmers dissent from conclusions
or suggestions, they will, through the press, give the benefit of their practical experience; as my sole and only object in writing these articles is
to draw forth such expression of opinion and discussion as may throw
such light on the true interests of Californian agriculturists, that we
may avoid the calamities which are threatening the Californian farmers.
AIan after man who has gone into the business with capital, has succumbed to double pressure of low prices and short crops. The withdrawals from the business-whether from failure or disgust-have been
not only by~those who embarked in it without much of personal experience to guide them, but those who have made it a life-long occupation;
the thrifty, pains-taking farmer and the careless have alike left, or have
been obliged to leave, a vocation in which the State's best interests are
involved. It is our business and interest, as farmers, to fully understand the causes which have brought about this state of affairs, and if
within our power, apply the remedy.) The application of a light dressing of vegetable manure in such cases, shows wonderful results, and
few will complain of their crops when so situated that its application is
possible and profitable. 
60
On very few farms has there been any regular rotation of crops.
The tendency of any grains planted to become a weed has much increased the expense of clean crops to famers.  Want of cross fences
has been another difficulty. Stock running from barley stubble to wheat
increase the farmer's expense and lessen the value of the crop. The
want of a paying green crop beyond that of corn, it is to be hoped, will
be reached by the culture of the sugar beet.  The necessity of some
intermediate crop is becoming yearly greater. The thistle, mustard,
careless and radish make good battle with the step-children of the soil
yearly; the last, an imported nuisance, which requires more than ordinary efforts to overcome; its oily seeds lie years in the ground; ready
to grow at any season where sunlight and moisture reach them.
On lands where these weeds have obtained a hold, one dollar per
acre, yearly, will scarce pay the labor of keeping them down, and there
are some lands in which they have obtained firm hold, on which fifteen
dollars per acre would be a low estimate of cost of their extirpation.
As this amount is not exaggerated-actual trial of some of my neighbors, as well as my own, showing its correctness-the farmer who has
not been attacked by this enemy will do well to give it close attention
on its first appearance. Few men in making their estimates of expenses allow sufficient for the incidentals, the makings, the repairs, the
getting ready, the losses of time, wet and dry days, broken tools, lame
and missing animals, in fact, the whole chapter of accidents and mishaps, as well as all the needful business of preparation, of getting ready
to farm.  From labor accounts kept on two farms in different parts of
of the State, these items were found to embrace one-third the whole
labor; hence I have adopted the custom, in all my labor estimates, to
add thirty-three per cent., and experience has yet to show me that it is
too much.  Every wagon-tire that gets loose, every shoe lost, every
fence panel open, every plough point and reaper knife broke, carries its
own charges of labor and delay, and I think none but those who work
very easy soils will think this estimate too high, when trying to arrive
at the expense of their agriculture.
Amount of Cereal Crop and Method of Cultivation.
EDITORS ALTA:-We  reach now the yield per acre, and the expenses of cultivation of the cerealscrops. The largest crops I have seen,
taking fields through, has been sixty bushels of barley, the same of oats,
and fifty bushels of wheat per acre, taking the barley bushel at fifty
pounds, the oats at thirty-six pounds, and the wheat at sixty pounds.
The best yield I have seen the last season is thirty-eight bushels of
wheat per acre on a piece of land which the previous year had been
in corn.  A piece near by, of really better land, sown earlier, but which
had been cropped for the same length of time without rest, produced less
than twenty-five bushels per acre; another less than twenty - bushels.
This also was a better soil, but like piece No. 2, had been continually
cropped.
Observations on these crops strengthened my impressions, that where 
61
our crops lessen in amount the want of the plant is more the vegetable
than the mineral constituents. The first piece having had a dressing
of straw manure from the cow yard the year previous; at the same
time a naked fallow, on a piece of land which had run down to an average of twelve bushels per acre, brought it up to twenty-two bushels.
It would appear that where the land is fresh and new, or made fertile
by manure or fallow, so that the young wheat plants have no difficulty
in extracting from the soil the material necessary for the first early and
rapid growth, that a dry season afterward has not so much effect on the
crop as it has on land where the vegetable element may not be so
abundant, or well prepared for immediate use.  In each of these cases
the seed had the same preparation, and the land the same care in cultivation, the last two pieces mentioned being not only the strongest and
best soils, but from location, depth of water, etc., the best crops might
have been expected from them in a dry season.
Many fields harvested in the last two years have given their owners
but from twelve to twenty bushels per acre. The same lands, after a
fallow, would have given ten bushels more of better wheat. To those
who cannot afford to lose the use of their lands for a year, which the'
naked fallow calls for-lands, perhaps, too dry to mature a paying corn
crop-I would suggest a half fallow, which I have found to work well
Either pasture late, or hurry a hay crop off the land; then plow and
pulverize well with harrow and roller; then plant corn in close drills,
setting the drill so that it will cover very deep. The corn fodder thus
planted will grow from two to five feet, and being green, when there
is no green fodder elsewhere, will be eaten close down by stock, leaving
the ground well manured, and in fine order for a crop.  This can be
done for less cost than the hauling and spreading of manure, and will
be found, I think, valuable by those who wish to make the most of their
land.
Another method of getting a feed crop easy has been practised with
much success, and that is, after the stock has been taken off the barley
stubble, to go over the land with a light gang plow or heavy cultivator,
follovwng after with a roller; the last operation is absolutely necessary,
as the stubble turned under having but a light coating of earth on top
will allow too great evaporation-forty bushels of good feed barley
per acre, over a large piece, has been obtained at this light cost: twentyfive to thirty bushels per acre very frequently.  It is generally the case
where stubble has been regularly plowed under, the land will give easy
to the plow in summer. I have seen land, after the volunteer barley
crop was taken off, immediately plowed with the double object of making a half naked fallow, and securing an early green feed for the dairy
stock. At the high rates of rents, labor, interest and taxes here, it
requires much capital in land or otherwise to be able to forego its use:
through an entire season; for that reason, if no other, a system embracing paying fallow crops, must be sought out, which will enable our
farmers to pay their way when their lands are recruiting the strength
necessary to enable them to bear a paying crop. The large grain crops
will pay at the rates-ruling at-the last two harvests, the small crops, at
these prices, only bring ruin and disappointment to their producersan evil only to be avoided  by a change in the. — habit and customs now'
too generally followed in our Californian agriculture. 
62
Costs of Farming in Different Soils.
In the estimates generally given of the cost of Californian agricultural
productions, reference is seldom made to accounts actually kept of separate transactions, but more frequently the farmer has only the total of
his expenses, guessing at all the intermediate items, while others are
satisfied to count any sum as profit, which remains in hand after the
wages of men and store expenses are paid. To such, any estimate of
labor and farm expenses I may make will appear high, but by the mass
of farmers such will be more readily believed now than they would have
been but a short time since. Under favorable circumstances the reaper
and ten hands will harvest fifteen acres per day, while the threshing
machine, with sixteen hands, will turn out its six hundred to eight
hundred bushels per day. When the weather is favorable, the land at
the right state of moisture-when Jack Frost with his army of harrows
assists the tillage, a farmer may easily plow and plant one acre per day
to every hand he has at work; yet an estimate of the costs of farming
from these data would be like making up a steamboat account with the
"repair" items out.  Farming may be made profitable for a few years
on new lands, even at the present prices of grain, but a reckoning day
must come; renovation, after the crops are lessened so they cease to
pay, is not so easy for the farmer to accomplish, as to so arrange at the
outset, by proper changes of crop and manures, to keep the land up to
a paying standard.
A rain more or less may double the cost of either planting or harvesting any given piece of land. I have been shown accounts where
one field used up five days' work per acre in planting and harvesting
the crop, while the field beside it took but three; in the one case the
weeds were prolific and the wheat badly lodged by a late rain, requiring mowing and other hand labor; in the other, the land was free from
weeds, and the grain stood up finely for the reaper's work. Where
land is in order for plowing with a two-horse team, it may be handled
with one-half less cost than where plowing with a four-horse team is
necessary. There is much land which can be worked cheaply in the
fall, and planted early, at the risk of a lodged or drowned crop, which
would be doubly expensive planted in the spring. And so through all
the expenses of farminog-each piece of land has its own advantages
and difficulties, so that the labor cost of one field or farm may not be a
fair estimate of those of another, even in the same season-therefore
any estimate we may make will be but a close approximation to the
average expense or cost of farming.
If the general average of farm production of the State is compared
with that of other countries, there will be found no lack of energy or
industry on the part of our farmers. We cultivate nearly two acres to
the individual of our white population, and export fifty dollars per head
for each of those engaged in the producing business of our State. The
causes of present depression in the agricultural business are not beyond
remedy, but which require a thorough comprehension on the part of
the farmer of those which are in their immediate power to remedy, and
a united will to make those changes and reforms which can only be
brought about by combined and determined action. We now import
a 
63
from foreign countries and other States nearly seventy-five dollars per
head. A large portion of this sum is for material which can be produced or manufactured here.  What we now produce and export only
amounts to about one-sixth of what we import-the balance has to be
paid from our earnings and the products of our mines.  Change our
products and encourage home manufactures, until this debt against the
State is lessened one-half, and no laborer will look long for work, or
our farmers complain of the low rates of profits in all the branches of
the State's agriculture.-Alta.
Costs of Grain-Growing.
The following estimate is the cost of cultivating an acre of average
wheat land, in an ordinary season, which, I think, my farming friends
will not find far from the truth;
Seed.................""......................   $1 50
Plowing and sowing, one and five-eighths days......................... 1 60
Board of manr and team.............................................   1 30
Rolling........................................................... 20
Weeding................................................1.....   00
Cutting, binding and shocking................................... 2 00
Raking............................................................. 25
Extra labor and extra team, with their keep while threshing.............1 50
Sacks.................2 40
Threshing twenty-five bushels at five cents............................. 1 25
Hauling to a shipping point.......................................... 50
Freight to a market................................................. 1 50
Storage, weighing and shipping...................................... 50
Proportion of the farm bill of blacksmith and wagon maker.............. 75
Incidentals, embracing the time spent in repairs, rainy days, etc., thirty      three per cent. of labor...................................... 2 70
Taxes on sixty dollars, the amount invested........................... 1 05
Wear of tools, depreciation in the value of fences, buildings, implements
and team.................................................. 0 00
Lessened value of land by cropping without manure...................0 00
Interest on investment-forty dollars in land and buildings, fifteen dollars
in team, five dollars in cash-sixty dollars......................  0 00
$20 00
Sales of twenty-five bushels wheat, 1,500 lbs., at one dollar and forty cents
per hundred, which, I think, is about the average value of good and
bad wheat at harvest for the last two years..................... $21  00
Leaving one dollar for the farmer as his profit on his labor and investment with which to commence his next year's work, and four dollars less of cash capital than he started with. Now assume my figures
are wrong, that deductions from the charges above can be made to the
amount of four dollars, so as to bring him out with his original cash
capital, or that he received one dollar anl sixty-seven cents for his
wheat, which would reach the same result of the five dollars per acre
of cash capital with which he started; where is the profit or interest on
his labor and investment?  Farm  labor is not likely to go far below
twenty-five dollars per month, when hired for short terms in winter, nor,
much less than two dollars per day during the harvest season.  Reduce
I
0 
64
all the labor items twenty-five per cent., and he only gets his original
capital back; making, I think, my early statement good, that reduction,
of labor expenses alone to any rate probable while the mines continue
profitable, will not enable the farmer to raise grain crops profitably at
the rates rulingat the two last harvests. 
If he holds his crop for better prices, he must have large capital or
incur debt.  If the result is as I have made the figures, he must incur
debt to get through another crop; a sorry prospect, at the ruling rates
of interest, with the chances of the Californian attachment law being ap —
plied to his case, whenever a creditor becomes uneasy or malicious.
With this law unchanged, no farmer is safe in his vocation, without
cash capital sufficient for his expenses for two years, (enough for one
year will not answer) for rust in the wheat crop, or a low range of prices
in foreign markets, may leave him at the end of one year entirely shorn
of cash capital.  That this presentation  art th1e Itn'ming business is not
overdrawn, the daily sales of farmers' effects, by order of Court, is sufficient answer. To my mind, there is no effectual remedy, but that proposed in the first letters on:this subject.
I- think the regular Californian ship owners' and merchants, if they
wish to continue receiving freights of cereals for their return vessels,
should make their calculations to make the freights their profits, instead
of an investment; the grain will not bear the double profit and leave
any margin to the farmer. A crop cannot now be raised on old or
second class land, with profit to the producer, at the rates ruling at harvest; the lower that rate, the more the farmer is obliged to sell, and
the less he will have on hand to benefit by any after rise in the price.
As before stated, there is a point at which production must cease, and
that is at the exhaustion of the farmer. How long the agricultural army
will, with fresh numbers and resources, battle on, I am not prepared'to
say; but to my mind the limit of our export  has, for a time, been
reached-for I know of none now bold enough to invest new capital in
agriculture.-Alta.
Expense of Wheat-Growing.
EDITOR GAZETTE:-The cost to the farmer of wheat landed on the
wharves of this city, is a matter to which we can only make a close approximation, as season, soil and amount of yield per acre will not only
make it vary from year to year, but on different fairms the same season.
We  find in a communication in the Alta (6alifornia the following
statement of the cost of cultivation of an acre of wheat on a medium
sized farm, where the threshing machine and additional team required
at that season were hired, and it appears to be based upon the labor of
a twenty-five bushel crop in an average season.
Seed....................................................... 
Plowing and sowing, one and five-eighths days........................
Board of man and team.............................................
Roiling.................................................
Weeding.,................................................ 
1 50 \
1 60
1 30
20
1 00 
65
Cutting, binding and shocking....................................... 2 00
Raking........................................................... 25
Extra labor and extra team, with their keeping while threshing........... 1 50
Sacks............................................................  2 40
Threshing twenty-five bushels at five cents.............................1 25
Hauling to a shipping point.......................................... 50
Freight to a market................................................ 1 50
Storage, weighing and shipping..................................... 50
Proportion of the farm bill of blacksmith and wagon maker............... 75
Incidentals, embracing time spent in repairs, rainy days, etc., thirty-three
per cent. of labor............................................. 2 70
Taxes on sixty dollars, the amount invested...........................  1 05
Wear of tools, depreciation in value of fences, buildings, implements and
team.......................................................  0 00
Lessened value of land by cropping without manure................... 0 00
Interest on investment-forty dollars in land and buildings, fifteen dollars
in team, five dollars in cash-sixty dollars...................... 0 00
Cost of cultivation per acre, and landing in market................... $20 00
The following statement is the cost of the cultivation of an acre of
wheat on a large farm, where no teams or tools are hired: -
Seed............................................................ $1 50
Plowing and sowing, one and one-half days at twenty-five dollars per month  1 43
Board of men And team............................................ 1 50
Rolling........................................................ 20
Weeding....................................................1 00
Cutting, binding and shocking-wages thirty-five to forty dollars.........1 70
Raking...........................................................    25
Sacks...'t................-..-  *  -   2.40
Sacks........................................2 40
Threshing-proportion wages and board seventy-five @ twenty-five dollars  1 60
Hauling.................................................................... 50
Proportion of blacksmith and carpenter's wages and material............. 44
Taxes............................................................    1 12
Contingencies-allowance for the lost time which every breakage, lame an      imal or rainy day occasions.....................................2 56
Shipping, warehouse, weighing, etc...................................   50
Freight............................................................   1 50
Interest, commission, wear and depreciation............................  0 00
Keeping of buildings and fences in repair, and keeping up working stock..  0 00
Making the average cost per acre................................... $18 20
In the Bulletin we find the estimated cost of the cultivation of a farm
of eighty acres, where no labor is charged in the account except at harvest and threshing:
Seed for eighty acres.........................f......................... $120 0
He will be three months about his work; board for himself and boy at
three dollars per w e     e     k........................................ 72 00
Keep of two teams, fifty cents per day................................ 90 00
Board while weeding and looking after crop........................... 12 00
Hire of reaper gang and reaper..................................... 160 00
Their board..................................................... 30  00
His board while stacking and raking................................. 12 00,O
Sacks for two thousand bushels.....................................180 00'
Hire of threshing machine-five cents a bushel........................ 100 0
Hire of three extra teams and wagons, three days at two dollars fifty cents  2  5,0:
Hire of thirteen extra men, three days...........................7,8$: 0O
Board of sixteen men, himself and boy three and one-half days.........27 00
Board of teams, ten, three and one-half days.......................... 17 
Wages and board of men whlil reaper knife was broken..................  00 0,
5
,p 
66
Wages and board of men while horse-power was broken................ 0  00 00
Extra labor of mowing, raking and threshing, where grain was lodged.    0 00
nterest charged by warehousemen on advance for sacks, harvest expenses  00 00
torage, weighing and shipping, sixty tons........................... 30 00
Board of man and team when hauling.  e....      e.......             27  00
lacksmith, wagon maker, harness maker, all seventy-five cents per acre.  60 00
reight to market, sixty tons at one dollar and fifty cents................ 90 00
Taxes on land and teams, tools, etc................................. 64 00
nterest, wear and tear, depreciation of value of land by constant cropping  00 00(
Damage to crop by hogs, stock or rain............................... 00 00
Total expense................................................. $1,192 00
Which gives an average of fourteen dollars and ninety cents per
acre; but as in this statement there is ao charge for contingencies or
incidentals, we add a corresponding charge to make closer comparison
with the others, which will increase the amount to about sixteen dollars
and seventy cents. We thus have the cost of grain per acre in favorable seasons, when the average crop is twenty-five bushels, on medium
sized farms, when labor is hired, at twenty dollars; on large farms,
where labor is hired, but machinery belongs to the farm, eighteen dollars and twenty cents; and on small farms, where most of the work is
done by the farmer and his family', sixteen dollars and seventy centssubject, however, to all the additional costs which may accumulate from
the items left blank in the statements, amounting to two dollars and fifty
cents per acre, more or less. These statements are made for the expenses of eighty acre, one hundred and sixty acre and eight hundred
acre farms.  The estimated cost of tools and implements is $800, $2400
and $5600.  As in all farming the family do more or less of the work,
and as the success as well as the economy of the effort, will in many
cases depend on the organization of the household, some portion of the
family expenditure, as well as the cost of keeping the farm in force and
material, as well as general repairs, are strictly chargeable to the cost
per acre; these expenses are covered under an allowance of five dollars
per acre for the two small farms, and two dollars and fifty cents for the
large one-making the cost of number one, twenty-five dollars per acre;
number two, twenty-two dollars and seventy cents; and number three,
twenty-one dollars and twenty cents.  A six hundred to eight hundred
acre faimn is large enough to warrant having and using all the larger
farm implements, and probably the most economical in its management
and details. A medium or one hundred and sixty to two hundred and
fifty acre grain farm has many of the expenditures in common with the
larger farm, without the corresponding economies.
I believe these statements to be nearly correct.  The hire of both
labor and machinery increases the cost of production on a medium
sized farm, while the economy of time which the larger farmer makes
by his ability to concentrate his forces on the lands best ready for cultivation, and to take advantage of steady labor in his harvest, enables
him to get the cost of his cultivation per acre very near to that of the
man who does the work almost within his own resources, and has no
labor to pay except at harvest. In the harvest of grain, much more is
wasted or left on the ground where the crop is small, than where there
is a heavy crop standing well up, so the reaper has no chance to slide
over the grain; and the increasing cQsts of cultivation and harvest are
E
s
B
B
F
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67
in no case in proportion to the difference between the profits oft a large
yield and small one. The average of the cost of production per
hundred on fhe two farms where the labor was hired would be at the
rate of one dollar and twenty-seven cents, without these charges, and
one dollar and fifty cents with them. Some intelligent farmers, however, aver that year in and out their grain costs them one dollar and
forty cents to one dollar and forty-five cents per hundred, delivered in
the city, from soils where it is necessary to bind their grain, increased
with a light yield and lessened with a large one. On sandy soils this
expenditure would be lessened at the rate of three dollars per acre. As
the average of these estimates is probably nearly correct, at present
prices the farmers are receiving fair returns and profit on their labor
where the yield has been not less than twenity bushels per acre.-Mercantile Gazette and Prices Current.
Advantages of Changes and Rotation of Crops.
EDITORS ALTA: The cultivation of corn, as a cleaning or fallow
crop, is fast becoming a regular business with our best farmers. This
crop may be handled with six days' work per acre, under favorable circumstances; up to as high as eleven days' work to the acre where late rains
increase the labor.  If a green crop is turned under before planting the
corn, a heavy rolling is absolutely necessary; but the practice is attended
with no little risk of losing a crop by drought, unless a heavy late rain
assists the rotting of the crop turned under. A crop of corn fbdder may
be made after a very late green crop is plowed under; and I have-yet
to learn of any method that will more readily, at light expense, put a
piece of land in good heart. Our dry seasons forbid the quick rotting
of any long manure; nor can it be hauled and spread to any amount
at much less cost than five dollars per acre. Perhaps the cheapest and
best mode of its application is to spread in the fall, before the first rains,
and plow under for the benefit of a corn crop, as soon as the grass is
well started, in February. This will insure moisture for its rotting the
first season.
In any rotation which is introduced, it is well to burn off the land
after the volunteer or hay crops, both on account of the weeds and the
partial calcination of exposed particles of soil; but if the burning is an
annual practice, the soil will soon show a want of fibrous matter, requiring more rain to soften it, and more team to work it. On many
accounts, an oat crop before wheat is preferable to a barley crop, where
no clearing or fallow crop is to intervene. If oats remain in the land,
they are of less injury and are easier cleaned from the wheat than barley.
If the regular oat crop is followed by a volunteer crop for hay, it will be
off early enough to admit of close feeding or a half fallow, which will
add some bushels to the yield, as well as make a cleaner wheat crop.
In laying out the rotation of crops-and California farming is fast
reaching a stage in its progress where the wisdom of the lay out will
govern the profits-as wheat is the crop that has payed best, and weeding of foul seed or volunteer grain from it is expensive, it will for a
t 
68
time have to come more frequently into a rotation than is considered
judicious or profitable in other Vountries; at the same tijie, it will be
well to lay out the work so that a portion of the farm wit require but
a light plowing each year to give sufficient team and time to the deep
plowing.
The following rotation has some advantages in this respect, as well
as freedom from weeds. We will suppose a piece of land has, like
most of our inclosed land, been well cropped with wheat. It might be
planted: the first year with barley, plowing deep; second year, volunteer barley, plowed light; third year, oats, plowed medium depth;
fourth year, oats, cut for hay; fifth year, wheat, moderate depth of
plowing; sixth year, corn, with manure, deep plowed; seventh year,
wheat, light plowing; eighth year, wheat, medium plowing. In this
rotation there are two deep plowings in eight years, two years in which
light gang-plows can be used, and one year in which plowing will not
be necessary. If the land is burned over before plowing the third and
fifth years, the security of a clean crop is the greater. A top-dressing
of salt on lands out of reach, of the sea fogs will help the crop, especially in very dry soils.  The lessened amount of team required and
equality of crop secured where four fields are laid off in a'rotation
similar to the above will readily suggest itself to the farmer; and if in
time the sugar beet, or some similar product, can be introduced to a
profit for the intermediate crop, grain farming will be made easier, if
not more profitable, than at present.
In favorable seasons there is not much advantage in seed put in with
the drill over seed sown broadcast; but in dry seasons, so far as my
observation goes, the drill-sowni grain has the advantage. Many farm ers have injured their seed by steeping too long in vitriol water. If
two ounces blue vitriol to the bushel of wheat is dissolved in water
sufficient to wet the pile-which, thus wet, is allowed to stand two
hours, and then dried by the application of unslacked lime-all the
purposes of the steep are secured. The seed is not only ready for
immediate use, but can be kept for use at a future time; in such case,
however, the pile should be shoveled over with the lime until perfectly
dry.  In harvesting, the straw can be stacked, if the threshing machine
has proper straw carriers, for about thirty cents per acre more than the
usual expense of bucking it off, and affords a feed for stock in winter,
and a means of accumulation of manure, of so much value to any farm
that it is surprising that so much is annually burned, when it can be
saved at so little cost. The landowner who leases his land without a
condition that the straw product shall be stacked on the place, is in a
fair way to lessen his rental; and the tenant who regularly burns his
straw will, in time, find the lease of a fresher piece of land more prof itable.  Whenever labor, freights and rentals reach thatpoint in which
the advantages we really possess can be made available, the shell beds
of the bay on some lands, and the sand hills of San Francisco on others,
will add largely to the productions of our agriculture.
A
I 
69
The  Nulilber of Farniers Ruined  by Exclusive Culture of
'Cereal Crops.
EDITORS ALTA: Before leaving the subject of grain growing to take
up that of orchard and vineyard culture, permit me to say a few words
in answer to an editorial which lately appeared in an evening paper,
which more than intimates that the failures and distress in the farming
districts are wholly confined to the large farms, and those who work
with borrowed capital. Did either of these conditions cover the case,
this series of articles would not have been written-for the remedy
sought for, were that editor right, would have been too near and too
obvious to have escaped attention. The number of men who have had
small farms, and have been broken up, and are now working for wages
as laborers on other farms, would astonish any one not familiar with
this phase in California life. I have, heretofore, compared the farmers
of California to an army storming a fortified p)lace; the dead are laid
in the breach for the live ones to pass over-new hands and new men
are constantly benefiting by the improvements made by those who pre.
ceded them. Many a little farm is now held only by the homestead
right; every available hoof and all personal effects have been sold to
hold their own against the low rates at which produce has been sold
the last two years.
The failure of the large farmers is more marked, but the distress
among the small ones is greater.  In one county, the mortgages placed
on record increased four hundred per cent. at the close of the harvest
of 1860. Under the style of' argument used in the article in question,
if these parties are sold out under mortgage, it is for working on borrowed capital, entirely losing sight of the original investment, and of
the necessity that had arisen, in consequence of the low prices of their
produce having used up all their cash capital, either to sell their farms
or mortgage them for means to carry them on. I have yet to learn of
any one farm that has been started and carried on by borrowed capital,
as described in the article referred to; but I do know of many who
have lost the original capital invested, and some extreme cases, where
farms have changed hands, in the closing up of mortgages, for onesixth of the original investment. I'also know a good many small
farmers, prudent men, every day workers, who have lost, or are about
to lose their farms from debt incurred the last two years, and a number
more who, I am happy to say, are saved from great difficulty by the
present remunerative prices of wheat. The farmers of this State, myself among the number, will be obliged for that information, which will
enable us to see profit sufficient for the support of our families in the
cultivation of small grain farms, at the prices ruling at the two last
harvests.
We are well aware money has been made in grain growing, when
prices have ruled at one dollar and seventy-five cents and upward, and
that these gains were devoted to the improvements which -have made
our agricultural districts what they are; and it is the present and prospective loss of this capital which makes what the gentleman is pleased
to call the "standing grumble" from the agricultural districts.   Few
farmers in Calif6rnia hhve capital sufficient to carry them over two 
70
crops, therefore the failure of a crop or prices not remunerative creates
the necessity of debt before another crop can be reached; if that also
from any cause makes a failure of profit, he has not only cause for a
"grumble," but is seemingly in a fair way to lose not only his labor but
his home.
That the export of grain to foreign markets is a strong indication of
prosperity to the State, no one can doubt; but that the amount of export is the measure of prosperity to the farmer, I beg leave to deny.
Maintain the prices for grain which the New York farmer receives,
and California would be a farmer's paradise; but keep it down, three
seasons in succession, to the rates it ruled at the close of the present
harvest, and, in my opinion, a large half of the grain farmers would be
bankrupt.
If small grain farms are most profitable, as the writer above mentioned intimates, I would ask why the large farm system finds such
favor in England, where grain growing has its aggregate of product,
and is reduced to its minimum of cost-agricultural economies having
the attention of the best minds in the kingdom? It is useless to put a
false coloring on what admits of easy demonstration.  If any figures,
or the conclusions I have drawn from them, are wrong, no one will be
more ready than the writer to receive instruction in the best method of
making profitable California agriculture.
Orchard Cultivation, and the Sale of Fruits.
EDITORS ALTA:-The cost of vineyard and orchard culture was
pretty thoroughly discussed in your columns a year or more since, and
in the interval I have seen no reason to doubt the conclusions then
arrived at. The estimates of twenty-five cents for the care of each
young bearing tree, and five cents for the care of young bearing vines,
are not far from the truth, and are data sufficient to make the labor
estimates from.  We have yet to learn the profits of vineyard culture;
as the Californian vines are now being tried on their merits, their
value and place in the world's favor have not been so fully ascertained
that there is perfect certainty in the investment; but enough has been
learned of their culture, manufacture, and good qualities, to warrant
the belief that in this staple Californians will not be disappointed.
That orchard cultivation has not been generally profitable, the known
fact that very few of the early orchards planted remain in first hands,
is sufficient answer-giving fair warning of the danger of any long
investment of capital in agricultural operations  against the current
rates of labor and interest.
Although single trees and small plantations show great precocity in
bearing, a longer time is required for a bearing maturity that pays.
Where large plantations are made in orchard form-where the trees
have abundant room and are well cultivated, the apple requires five to
six years to bear a paying crop. This length of outlay without return
has, in too many cases, used up the planters; and as the value of the
product is wholly governed by the daily supply, no estimate can be 
71
given of the prospective value of this business.  There is none too
much planted when the consumption for the table in cooking, drying,
preserving, etc., reaches a proportionate amount to that used in the
Eastern States; but until the custom of buying by the pound is abandoned for that of purchase by the package, the Californian orchardist
may rue his investment.  The pdd year appears to be the bearing year
on this coast, although there is no difficulty, where the trees are well
fed, of having an annual crop. The best yield I have known is 1,500
pounds of apples to a twelve year old tree.  The tendency of the tree,
where artificial stimulus is not applied, is to make slow growth after
having came full bearing; and the weight of present evidence is in
favor of the opinion, that the appl.e,tree will not be so long-lived here
as in other countries.
The taste of buyers for very large fruit interferes sadly with the
profits of those who have planted the finer varieties of table fruitsuch mammoths as the Gloria Mundi far outseging the best table fruit
of small size. The habit of buying only large fruit has nearly ruined
the peach trade; the buyer soon becomes surfeited where flavor is
lacking, and the consumption has been seriously checked by the amount
of large-sized watery peaches picked in half ripe state, and thrown in
mass on the market. The culture of' fine pears is increasing faster
than the calls for the table; quantities of the most luscious varieties
were sold this season for less than their cost from the tree.' The manufacture of perry may in another year be introduced with profit to the
grower and manufacturer.
The culture of plums, is to an extent that abundance may now be
had for preserving in cans and drying. The California plum is unsurpassed in quality, and as the Curculio has spoiled it elsewhere, a wide
market is open for this product when put in a merchantable form.
The finest plums that reach the market are from the counties on the
south side of San Francisco Bay. Alameda and Santa Clara will
monopolize their culture, and the time will be when its export will be to
them a profitable business. The culture of the nectarine has been at a
loss to the growers; the good qualities of this fruit for preserves, have
not yet commended it to ready sale; in fact, our people have not yet
commenced to cork or preserve fruits to any great extent. Fresh
fruits on the stands the year round, the great abundance of vegetables,
and the minority of families in the great total of our population, may
account for the fact that the consumption for this purpose is not onetenth that of the older States in proportion to the population.
There is something to be learned in the manufacture of cider; as
yet a good keeping cider has not been reached; there is a possibility
that the fruit on our young trees is too much exposed to the sun, and
ripens too fast, for the apple to be in its full strength. The peach
shrinks to one-sixth in drying, which can be profitably done with labor
at fifteen dollars per month.  Se far as my observation goes, it is not
safe to pack peaches dried entirely in the sun; they must be finished
off in kiln or oven. Experiments on a large scale of preserving fruits
in cans have been made this season with entire success; and as those
understanding this business can obtain fruit hereafter at forty dollars
per ton, or under, from the orchards, a profitable branch of business 
72
from this source may be opened. Orchard culture cannot be neglected;
a season passed by without proper attention may bring ruin to the investment.  The gopher takes possession of the ground when  not in
thorough tillage, and the largest trees succumb to his efforts.
The China coast will, when steam bridges the Pacific, be to the California orchardist what the English market is to the orchardist of the
older States; and as our trees advance in age, and our knowledge increases of the varieties which are sure late keepers, as well as those
which are safe to be shipped, there will be business sufficient for this
branch of our agriculture.
Culture of Berries, Sorghum, Beet-root, Tobacco and Flax.
EDITORS ALTA: The cultivation of berries has increased so much
in the last three years, that competition, or a limited market, has so far
interfered with profits that only the best and most prolific strawberry
patches paid their owners this last season.   A  large portion of the
raspberry crop was, from limit of demand, manufactured into wine,
which is now ripening for market.   An  early season for the larger
fruits interferes very much with the profit of this business-a cold
season produces the same result-the market for all the soft fruits being cut off when the cold sea fogs are the prevailing feature of the
season.
The cultivation of root crops, like that of the berry, I am not sufficiently familiar with to give reliable details of cost; and the same with
the cultivation of peas and beans. This last article I have seen cultivated as a clearing crop, by parties who have Sonora laborers available; and as a portion of their business yearly is in their culture, I presume it is found profitable.
We  have favorable accounts of the culture of sorghum, and the
manufacture of syrup from it, both from Napa and Yolo counties.
The yield of syrup is reported at two hundred gallons per acre, and
the crop labor equal to that of corn. This syrup is said to granulate
when the unripe portion of the cane is cut off before pressing, so that
only perfectly ripe juice is obtained.  The suggestion has been made,
that a mixture of this syrup with that from the beet root may secure
more perfect granulation in both.
The course of experiments now being made at the San Francisco
Sugar Refinery, will establish the value of the beet root, for sugarmaking purposes, from different sections of the State, and at the same
time ascertain the amount of syrup from sorghum, or from sugar cane,
necessary to combine with it for a profitable result.  There is said to
be a plant or cane, indigenous to the region adjoining the Humboldt,
from which the Indians manufacture a syrup that will granulate.  If
this statement be true to its full extent, it is well worthy the attention
of some adjacent culturist.  The culture of the hop has been successful and profitable wherever tried in our State; and will be certainly
profitable to the extent of our home market, and of others, if properly
cured and packed for shipment.  The amount for the home market will
0 
73
be indefinitely increased, as the manufacture of our cheap barley into
beer for export becomes a branch of Californian business.  The consumption of English beer and ale in Eastern regions is greater than
that of lager in our own State; and there is no reason why, in time,
we should not have a share in this profitable business.
Tobacco, also, has met with success and profit to those who have experimented with its culture, which, so far as all present experience goes,
promises to be an article of general profitable culture.  The cultivation
of hemp has been made in Alameda county with profitable result, as
one might infer from the figures of the crop as published. A large
portion of the rope used in the State might be of this manufacture,
with or without tar. Aside from the value of flax, which it has maintained through so many ages and people, and the common use of its oil
product, the new discovery of a cheap method of cottonizing its fiber,
if successful in its application, renders its culture of value to California, from the ease with which we can use this'fiber in manufacturing
with wool. At an agricultural meeting in New York, when this subject was under discussion, it was stated the ton of flax would yield
three hundred pounds of cottonized fiber, or four hundred and fifty to
six hundred pounds to the acre, at an estimated price of eight cents per
pound. Hemp culture alone would open out a large avenue to agricultural employment and manufacturing industry in our State; and any
practical information referring to its culture or manufacture in any
form here, will be of assistance in developing this opening to another
industrial resource.
There are many crops which are only valuable, and will only command sale when enough of them are produced to pay a further outlay
on them after leaving the producer's hands.  Many suchrops, though
familiarly cultivated in other States, are novel in California; and parties who lack knowledge of the crop, or who are limited in means, hesitate to undertake their culture.  The farmer who successfully raises
any product new to our State, will do good service to the community in
making known the details of labor and expense attending its production-which known, will sooner make his own knowledge and labor
valuable, by having a commodity introduced in sufficient quantity to
warrant a market and a further investment upon it. Such information,
freely and frequently given, would do much to help along the cause of
our State's agriculture.
Productions and Manufa,ctures that are Legitimate Objects
of Legislative Aid.
There are crops which from their nature, or from the circumstances
under which they are raised, can be with great difficulty introduced
into culture; yet once becoming a staple, are a source of benefit and
profit, not only to the culturist, but to all other interests Which go to
make up the sum of prosperity and wealth of the State.  In some
crops in a State like our own, at a great distance from the manufacturming and commercial centers, the erection of buildings and machinery 
74
for their manufacture are required almost simultaneous with their production. If from their nature bulky, and low priced, at the commencement of culture they will not be likely to afford a profit over the
charges of export; while, as a home manufacture, they would pay
largely, the very charges avoided, in another form, acting as a premium
on their production.
Such productions and manufactures are legitimate objects of Legislative aid, and deserve in their infancy the fostering care of a State government, to the support of which the agricultural interest of the State
has so largely contributed.  There are others which, on introduction,
meet with ready sale and appreciation, to which the aid given by the
agricultural societies is sufficient; and still others, which need not only
introduction at the hands of government, but its fostering care through
the early years of experiment, trial and acclimation to which all exotics are exposed. Under the first head may be classed the production
and preparation of filx and cotton, and their after-manufacture of
sugars from any product of our soil. Under the second, among other
products, plants for dye stuffs, cordage, hops, tobacco, dried and preserved meats, soap, candles, tanned hides, boots, shoes, harness, wines,
brandies, raw silk, etc.; and in the third, tea and coffee should be particular objects of attention.
The articles enumerated in the second class, with the exception of
dye plants and home-made cordage, from California fiber, have already,
in some shape, been introduced. There is a demand for dye stuffs
now, and the cultivation for this purpose would be remunerative, as the
success of the present manufacturing efforts warrant the expectation of
a steady call for these products. The price of Manila hemp, which
within the ls  few years has been even with the cost of its production,
rules the price of cordage in this market; but should there, for any
reason, be an interruption of friendly relations with Spain, the value of
home production of fiber, for the manufacture of cordage, will be at
once apparent.  The manufacture of beer for export is a subject of
material interest to agriculturists, as its success would so much enlarge
the market for barley and hops; its consumption in what is usually
called the Eastern World is enormous, and as our barley can be purchased by brewers at one-half the English rates and as hops will soon
be sold as cheaply as they are obtained in the countries nowv having
the monopoly of that market, there appear no obstacles but those of
labor and package against its manufacture here. We have yet little or
no reliable data in reference to the culture, curing and preparation of
tobacco in our State, (and would here respectfully suggest that while
our agricultural societies offer liberal and large premiums for the production or manufacture of atiny product-no second premium is needed
in such cases-which has a direct bearing on our new agricultural
interests, the exhibit shall be accompanied with a detailed statement of culture or manufacture with cost, and such other information
as shall achieve the object sought for, benefit to the agricultural commnnity, and through them the State.)  We  are yet in the dark as to
what varieties of tobacco do best in given localities, or best treatment.
Another season, however, will probably find its culture and that of the
hop on a very sure basis. In view of the low prices to which our 
horned stock are reduced, the salting and preserving meats, the manufacture of soap, oil and glue, and the tanning of hides, is an object of
special and immediate interest. China opens to us a large and increasing
market for salted and preserved meats. As steam is introduced on her
rivers, the amount of shipping, commerce and European population there
will be sufficient to use up all the surplus we cannot work off in other parts
of the Pacific. If, with the preservingof meats, Californian hides could
all be tarned and manufactured here, the difference in their value, and
the increase of labor employments opened to an increasing population,
would go far to relieve the stock business of its present features of uncertainty and loss. And the same with preserved fruits. Once these
are added to our export trade, our orchardists will not incur a loss by
the surplus of their product over the wants of a limited home market.
The efforts now making and that have been made, not only by individuals but by the State, through the Legislature and the agricultural
societies, to secure a good wile product, will not only bring forth good
fruits from the vines, but result in a stable prosperity to this portion of
the State's agricultural interest, not only giving profitable employment
and homes to a large population, but holding forth more inducements
for immigrants than any other branch of our agricultural resources at
present developed. This interest will amply repay all the fostering
care which may be bestowed on it, either by legislative - aid, or that of
the agricultural associations.  The culture of raw silk, or rather its
production, is a branch of industry that is desirable, by liberal premiums,
to foster into business life, as it would afford employment to many who,
from feebleness of finance, age, past habits, or constitution, could not so
well embark in other business. At one time it appeared as if the silkworm was to have all the rights of useful citizenship, but of late we
have heard but little of his progress. A good round bonus on the first
bale, or ten bales of raw silk, might stimulate his industry, and some
thought to an enterprise and effort which would add a silk export to
the wealth our State is deriviug from our agriculture.
Woolen Manufactures and their Market.
EDITORS ALTA:-In my last letter, by some mistake of mine in
writing the manuscript, wool and ts manufactures were not mentioned
as articles calling for special attention on the part of our agricultural societies: not that attention has not been given them, or the other products
named in class second, but because a more general production and better manufacture give value to so many interests of the State with
which they are directly or indirectly connected. Every pound of wool
sent from the State saves the sending of its value in gold; every outward
bound ship we load lessens the freight to us of the article we must import. Every bale of wool manufactured in the State, not only makes
us less dependent on other States, but increases the value to the seller
of that we export, and creates a home business which gives a market
for our other farm products.
When enough of our own wool is manufactured here to meet our
76 
76
wants, our surplus will always be sure to bring the producer full prices;
for, with such a home market, no combination of buyers for other markets could be made that would materially lessen the price here below
the prices where manufactured, freight and charges off. Our own manufactures would always be working, less these charges, and have that
advantage, as well as out-freight; an interest account over other manufacturers, enough in the aggregate, to offset their high labor account.
When  we manufacture for export, and the time is not very distant,
there is still the first named advantage in favor of our manufactures,
and if our market is Northern China, an additional advantage of eight
months' time. There is a large demand for coarse woolen goods in
Northern China and the adjoining countries.
The Russian all wool product, although burthened with the charges
of a long inland transportation, are there in great favor, and undersell
the English and continental importations.  The probable secret is, the
Russian manufactures are all wool, and  experience has taught the
economical buyers of that region their durable qualities.  Is there not
a chance for the California fabric in these markets?  May we not minanufacture all our coarse wools here and have the benefits to agricultural
and mechanical interests the employment of so much labor would create?  Next to the manufacture of agricultural implements, there is no
progressive institution af the State in which our farmers are more directly or pecuniarily interested than in the success of the  San Francisco woolen manufactories.   [Our  correspondent, who is a farmer
residing in the interior, is not aware of the destruction of the Pioneer
Mill.- EDs. ALTA.] Their success positive, and others will follow, not
only for the manufacture of wool, but for flax and cotton, until we arrive at a home market which will so far consume our cereal and Other
products, that their value will be commensurate  with the cost of production, and not as now crowded within that limit by a combination of
'buyers, through whom we have the only avenue to the consumption of
our surplus crops.
The farmers of this State may buy as many goods from other States
or foreign countries as they please, in fact, to the whole amount of their
wants; they will not in return get one dime more for their produce in
foreign markets for all the custom we give them. The argument might
be used if we imported largely, freights outward would be less, and which
would be  worth something if this competition was all at the harvest
season, when the low freight would be of real benefit; but as shipments
to our port are scattered'thro'ugh the year, freights bid fair always to
rule high when the demands for a foreign market are great enougrh to
remunerate  the farmer.  Our safety'is in a good home market, and
every farmer who understands his own interest will patronize our own
home manufactures; wear'the California cloth, and home-made boots
and shoes, when he can get them; use the home-made wagons and agricultural tools; in fact, do all he can to build up and make profitable
home manufactures, and in five years' time there will be mouths enough
to feed to make a respectable market for our products-enough, at
least, to meet our most pressing wants, and allow us to take our own
time on the sale of the balance.
As it'now:is, the California farmer has been, f6r the last three years, 
77
working wholly for the benefit of shippers and ship owners and their
agents.  Had he been working for his own, we should not see so much
of our grain land lessened in value, so many improved farms for sale,
such an increase of mortgaged country property, or so frequent sheriff's
sales. Farmers, you may work industriously and live prudently, but
your business is not safe, nor can it be permanently profitable without
a better home market. That home market you can soon secure, if you
will resolutely patronize home manufactures and no others.   By so
doing you will not only make a better market for the crops you now
raise, but have the opportunity to raise others far more profitable; your
attention directed to this point, a little patriotism, and the power is with
us to help ourselves. Without we use this foresight, without cultivation of a higher regard for our home manufactures, there will not, as
years roll on, be much profit, I think, for those engaged in the present
round of Californian agriculture.
The Growth and Manufacture of Sugars in California.
EDITORS ALTA:   Among the articles deserving of legislative aid
in their incipient stages, I mentioned that of the manufacture of sugars
from any product of our own soil.  At present, the principal sources
of our supply of raw sugars, for after-manufacture, are fiom the Philipine Islands, China and Java, with small supplies from the Sandwich
and Society Islands, and Central America.   To the best of my knowledge, our principal supply is from Manila, that sugar holding a high
place in all refineries. The sugar duty now levied is two cents per
pound on raw sugars and four cents per pound on refined, and five
cents per gallon on molasses, an ample tariff in favor of our own labor
in producing the home-made article.  In the event of any war in which
Spain is interested, an immediate rise would take place in the value of
sugars, at once affecting us, as her East India colonies are the source
of our best supplies. So that at any turn of the political wheel, either
in Europe or the United States, we  may find this heretofore cheap
necessity doubled in its cost.  A production like sugar from the beetroot is necessarily slow in its growth and introduction-it required a
Napoleon to introduce its culture in Continental Europe, and the most
persistent after effort and nurture, on the part of the French Government, to make its production an unqualified success, its present amount
being at the- rate of 120,000,000 of pounds per annum, nearly one-half
of the whole amount of sugar yearly consumed in France. There is
no objection to the culture of the sugar beet on the farm, no crop will
answer better for an intermediate, none that leaves the land in better
order for an after crop, or may be cultivated with better economy of
time or turned into a merchantable form with less waste.
Our legislators will do the California farmers good service, if by encouragement of the manufacture of beet-root sugar, the culture of this
crop can be made profitable.  The only objections that I have learned,
to the culture of the sorghum, are the difficulty of eradicating the roots
and needle-like sharpness of the fibers of the dry cane, injuring the
0 
mouths of cattle.  Objections which can be got over if a steady yield
of syrup, to the amount of one hundred and sixty to two hundred and
fifty gallons per acre, may be counted on.   The manufacture of its
sugar, like that of the beet sugar, will need nurture. Much outlay of
capital is required in all such undertakings accompanied with no little
risk. The processes of sugar manufacture from this cane, in nicety of
detail, are yet to be learned. The better yield of both sugar and syrup
is said to be obtained by crushing the cane immediately after cutting.
Doubtless both this syrup and that of the beet will need some admixture of sugar from the cane, before it will crystallize without too great
a loss of time.
The next point is-profitable culture of the sugar cane itself; so general is the belief that it can be done, that liberal legislative aid to make
its production a feature of Californian agriculture, would give general
satisfaction.  Such aid, in addition to the enterprise of our people, is now
more than ever necessary; the lack of pbfit in the investments made
in stock-growing, grain and orchard cultivation, in the last few years,
has disinclined our people to make large agricultural investments-in
fact, any in which the returns are prolonged beyond a season. There
appears to be no remedy in this depression, but in change of crop, and
the crops which it appears most desirable to introduce, need manufacturing capital, enterprise and industry immediate with their production,
to render their introduction either profitable or possible. If we examine the history of all countries where agriculture takes a high rank,
we shall find the fostering hand of the Government aiding the early
growth and manufacture of all new productions. If we look over our
own country, we shall find the agriculture of those States in the most
flourishing condition that have freely fostered the efforts of their agriculturists; or by direct purchase of fine stock, have not only benefited
but doubled the ambition of their farmers to excel in the products of
their fields and herds.
Our State Government has done, and is doing, much for the benefit
of our Californian agriculture, but not a tithe of what our agriculture
has done for the State, nor what its interests can, in justice, claim for its
legislators. Whatever amount may be given in the way of bonus to
stimulate into immediate life, in this early day of our history, such interests as those of which I am writing, will return to the State an hundredfold in taxable wealth and benefit to our people.  Thus far our progress
has been remarkable among the States and empires of the earth; make
it still more so by judicious legislation, and we may develop our a,ricultural resources, until our mining wealth and export is entirely second
to that of agricultural, not in the dim future for our children's benefit,
but within the next ten years for our own.  Wise legislation now will
carry our agriculture by the check which the increase of cattle and the
overgrowth of the cereal and fruit crops on limited markets has occasioned.  Other crops can be made to take up, in part, the farmer's time
and attention, lessening the difficulties and risks that now surround
niearly all those engaged in our agriculture.
78 
79
Flax-Culture-Advantages of its Introduction in our State.
Without due consideration of the difficulties which attend the introduction of a bulky, low-priced product intocultivation, where there is
no immediate call for its staple in manufacture, and the length of time
after its cultivation has commenced before the manufacturer would,
under ordinary circumstances, be warranted in making his investment,
it might appear that the call for legislative aid to introduce the culture
and manufacture of flax in any country in the nineteenth century, was
a step backward in the stage of human progress.  True, the Egyptians
spun its fiber when Moses rejoiced in the hail-storm that destroyed
their flax and barley crops; that our great-grandmothers were proud
of their linen, woven by their own hands, and that the good Dutchmen
of Manhattan Island had crops of it as early as 1626; and it is none
the less true that we want its production and manufacture in our California, for there is very little of our agricultural product we can move
without bagging of some form, and there is little need of buying it
abroad if we can manufacture it at home.
California has long been noted for her wool and hide exports, but it
is only very lately that our wool, or our hides, have been manufactured
here, and it is not desirable that so long an interval should elapse between the first crop of flax and its manufacture, if a good round bonus
from our Legislature for the first hundred or thousand pieces of burlaps
or bagging manufactured in a mill erected for the purpose, would give
this business life and vitality within one year, or two at the most.  It
would pay the State handsomely on any investment the Legislature
might choose to make, if such a bonus should stop all the payments we
now make abroad for the bagging we require in handling our grain and
wool crops, even if we did not look beyond this point for our exports.
If precedent is necessary, we might take Russia for a guide, with the
loom and spindle in almost every peasant's house, and an annual production of linen in that empire equal to 655,00()0,000 of yards; still the
culture and perfection of this crop is stimulated by the government, by
flax fairs, held for this special purpose, rewards for fine productions,
and the distribution of tracts describing every new or better process of
preparation or manufacture.
King Cotton has of late years engrossed so much of our attention we
have been unmindful of the claims of Farmer Flax, and as just now we
need some other large crop in California that will pay dividends in
place of or intermediate with the cereals, it is a good time to press the
claims of flax upon public attention. In commerce, the chief supplies of
flaxseed are obtained from the Black Sea and the Baltic; there ate
importations from Egypt and from India, but not of so good a quality,
being often mixed with rape and other seeds. The demand for linseed
oil is so great, its adulteration or mixture with other oils is common.
Our own demand for this oil will increase as our population surround
themselves with the permanent improvements stability of occupation
will call for.  Thus there is a large home market open at once for the
oil product, with opportunity of export of any surplus.  Now, if with
this demand, we can have one also for the fiber, then is its profit to the
farmer on a secure basis, — two payments out of the State stopped, a-d 
80
the embryo of another export secured-benefits sufficient to the State
and people to call for that legislative attention which will render them
imnmediate. But its benefit to us will not end in additional agricultural
employment and the home manufacture of linseed oil and burlaps; with
it, we can manufacture the coarse carpets and other fabrics we now import, and in time sail-cloth for our coasting fleet; mixed with wool, we
cheapen and enlarge that manufacture; cottonized, and we are independent of outside supply for all articles of our daily wear.
The greatest mechanical and chemical skill is now being applied to
these processes, which will cottonize it to a uniform staple.  Success
has been achieved, sufficient for all common manufactures. With a
climate and soil eminently suited to its production, there is apparently
no good reason why we should not at once have the benefit of its introduction into our State as a regular staple of agriculture and of export.
Much may be done by our Legislature. A statesmanlike view of what
will tend not only to the immediate interest, but to the future of our
State's prosperity, in building up home products, remunerative employments, home  manufactures, and all the after commerce which
hinges on their success, would quickly double our population  and
the State's wealth.
The incoming Legislature, composed of gentlemen elected more for
their patriotic devotion to our country and the Union than their fealty
to creed or party, can in no way more surely make their mark in the
future history of Californian growth and progress, than in wise efforts to
open out and enlarge the great material interests of the State. If by
such legislation the products can be introduced which home manufactures call for, they will at least have the gratitude of all the friends of
agriculture.-Att.
The Production of Cotton, and the Cost of its Culture in
California.
EDITORS ALTA: Can cotton be successfully introduced as a branch
of Californian agriculture? is a question of so much importance to the
productive, manufacturing and commercial interests of the State, I
would like to see the subject discussed by some other agriculturist, and
by a hand more conversant with its culture than mine. The able editor of the Sacramento Union, in alluding to a sample of cotton grown
in the Salt Lake region, from a crop which the Mormons are trying
to make, of sufficient amount to furnish themselves with cotton goods,
thus speaks of the chances of a growth of cotton in California:
"The alluvial land on the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, we
are confident would produce excellent cotton.  It is very much of the
same character of the rich bottoms on the rivers in the Gulf States,
which are considered the best of cotton lands. If the climate is suitable, land which will produce good corn will do equally well in cotton.
The cotton plant sends into the earth a tap root, and in the bottom land
on the Sacramento and San Joaquin, would find moisture without difficulty, particularly on the land adjacent to the mouths of these rivers. 
81
Cotton needs a long summer, and after it gets well started, a dry one.
In cotton countries the rule is, a dry season for cotton and a damp one
for corn. The plant obtains a large portion of its nourishment firom the
atmosphere. In a wet season the weed grows large, but the bolls are
not so plenty, and the great amount of foliage on it, combined with an
excess of moisture, causes the bolls to decay before they are matured,
and fall to the ground. In a dry year the plant will be found much
smaller, but filled with squares, blossoms and open bolls. After cotton
bolls begin to open, which they do when matured, somewhat like the
burr of the chestnut, the plant will present the forming, square, the
blossom, the boll, and the open boll, at the same time."
Almost simultaneous with the appearance of the above, a beautiful
sample of cotton was exhibited in San Francisco, as coming from Vi  salia, "from seed brought from Texas, grown in sandy soil, irrigated,
the stalks not strong enough to bear the weight of cotton, with irriga  tion, they might have borne it without, as so great a luxuriance would
not have ensued."  The  Union editor, although so evidently right on
the above points, I hope, for California interests, is not right in the
following:
"As so much time and labor are required to make cotton and get it
into market, we conclude that if the plant will grow as luxuriantly on
the river bottoms in California as it does in Alabama, it will never be
cultivated to any great extent, because of the continuous labor for
a year which must be bestowed upon it."
This, as may be seen, contains the pith and gist of the whole matter,
which is: Can the labor its production calls for be maintained here
under our high rates of labor and short capital? And although I dis  like to differ with one who evidently understands cotton culture better
than I do, I think it can be done, and if the conclusions I arrive at are
not correct, the discussion of the subject will at least do no harm.
The cost of hired slave labor I have seen quoted from fifteen dollars
per month, in Louisiana, down to five dollars per month, for field
hands, in Virginia. Their board I have seen quoted from eighteen to
twenty-six dollars per year, and their clothing from four to twelve.
For present purposes, we will take the average of these sums, which
will give the board and clothing of the slave at thirty dollars per
year. Then come taxes, where paid, interest on investment and de  preciation, whether from age, sickness, or escapes. We will call the
interest eight per cent. on an eight hundred dollar investment, and the
other charges the same, which will give a total of one hundred and fifty  eight dollars per year for the use of an able bodied slave, who culti  vates his six acres of cotton and four acres of corn. Now, my expe  rience of Chinese labor, in comparison with slave or Hindoo labor, is,
under ordinary circumstances the Chinaman will accomplish as much
as two slaves or three Hindoos, but as Sambo is under some inspir  iting influences during crop time, we will assume the Chinaman would
do no more than the slave. I think the Chinaman will soon be hired
for fifteen dollars per month the year round, supporting himself. This
at once brings his cost within twenty-two dollars per year of the slave
labor, but as this is only supposition, we will take the amount at which
he can now be hired, which is two hundred and forty dollars per year,
6 
82
boarding himself, and at a proportionate rate, when wanted for a less
time, with apparently no d(ifficulty of securing any quantity of them at,
these rates.
If we deduct the time they are not wanted, when they can be discharged or employed at other labor, we  reduce their wages very near
to the value of the slave labor.  If we make an allowance for the spare
mouths to be fed, in counting the plantation force, as part of the expense,
we arrive at very near the same result.  As the Chinaman does not
have to be fed, only grain enough for the teams would be required on
the farm, leaving him his whole time for the cotton, which, if planted of
two qualities, a part on dry and part on moist soil, might be worked on
a longer season.  The next point is the' security of having him when
wanted.  That point can be reached by stipulation that the first two or
three - months' pay shall be kept back until the contract time expires.
This method is effectual.
With our long planting and very dry seasons, cannot the cotton tillage come up to the full ten acres to the hand?  Is not the season and
the ease with which our soil can be tilled, an advantage which counterbalances the apparent difference in cost?  I say apparent, because I
believe, in practice, the China'manti under wages will do enough more
work than the slave to make up all the difference.  Then next comes
the objection of freight and transport, which is quickly settled, for
wherever cotton can be raised in our State, railroads may be made to
the rivers, as a cost so cheap per mile, each planter might almost command his own.  The question of its manufacture I have  taken up in
another article; that and'its market, I have no doubt about. The
only question is, can it be made a profitable branch of California agri
culture.
Chinese Labor as Adaipted to Cotton Culture.
EDS. ALTA -In my last letter I made some comparisons betweenthe cost of slave labor and the prqspective cost of Chinese labor, as ap-,
plied to the cultivation of cotton. The question of the utility of Chinese
labor is "not only an important question now, but ode which each year
will assume features of greater'importanice, as our commerce with China
acquires the Strength which is marked for it in the role of California
destiny.  The samne treaty which secures our peo'ple the right of business, traffic and residence in -the Chinese empire, sec(ures the Chinaman
the same rights her~.  If -we have made a bad bargain, or their being
here is an evil, our only resource is to make the best of it.  But have
we made a bad barga in?   In my opinion, we  ihave not; for as the'
China rivers open to ouir' trade, as steam belts the Pacific, and the railroad girdles our mountains, China'Will do more for us, and give employment to a far greater numiber of our people than we'shiall give to
them.  Are they anh evil?  If so, we had better guide them; into those
occupations'ahd   employments they are be"st adapted to, and wiherein
their c6ompetition will be the least  with any other labor; and out oQf
evil extraet gobd, or e'vy bale of cotton or- tobacco, every bundle of
canfe orbarl'6f rce we cat  make them raise, gives either ]Labor or 
83
business for our own people, or profit in the shape of lessened expenditure.  If we can make them raise cotton, we will have labor and profit
in all the machinery of its cultivation, transport and manufacture, employment for our shipping, and after profit in the sale of its manufactures to their countrymen.  There is no raw material we can make
them extract from the soil, which will not afford after employment and
profit to our own countrymen.
The next question is, how to get them at it. A leaf from the book
of our grumbling cousin, John Bull, in India, may help us to the happy
thought. The English cotton spinners have, in some parts of India,
erected gins and presses, and purchase the cotton from the peasants as
picked.  Why may not gins:and presses be erected in some central location, suitable for the production of cotton; land broken up and leased
to the Chinamen for its cultivation; the product, as picked, be bought
of them at a stipulated rate, having regard to quality and cleanliness;
and the same with the cane or any other product it may be deemed desirable to turn their labor upon? Can we not, by this or some similar
scheme, make their presence a blessing, and give our State what is so
much needed - a material for home manufactures and a valuable
export?
In the Australian colonies, of so much value does the introduction of
cotton culture appear to the Colonial Government, that a bonus is offered of fifty dollars per bale for the production of the short-stapled,
and one hundred and fifty dollars per bale for the Sea Island-a result
which is expected to be arrived at by the importation of coolie labor.
We  have them here, without this trouble, and as the question in the
State's political economy is under discussion as to what is best to be
done with them, my own idea is, either by hire or lease, to get them to
planting cotton, or any other productive employment which the prospective continuance of the high rates of other labor forbids our introducing without their aid.  We  cannot, while our mines afford good
payment to day labor, expect the monthly labor of the white man to
recede far below present rates, which, while they continue, are an ef
fectual bar to the production of any article which requires low-priced
continuous labor. And while this state of things continues, the scope
and avenue of the employment of that same white labor must be limited, except in-the mines.
I have shown in the previous articles the agriculturist cannot be
prosperous.without a change in his products, and unless this large class
of our State's population are prosperous, the withdrawal of their demands in other branches of business must be sensibly felt. Create a
home market by anly cause so that the agricultural community reap
fair returns for their labor, and every otherbusiness, commerce or employment will reap the benefit of it; keep the agricultural business depressed,- and not a merchant, mechanic or laborer who will not sooner
or later feel fts effects.  Our true course is to take fill advantage of
the means thrown in-our way, and to use the low-priced Chinese laboror Chinese nuisance, if you will-to produce these raw materials, which
will make employment and profit for our other labor, business for our
cities, commerce for our Shp7s, and a home marke for the productions
of odur agriculture. 
84
Culture of Coffee.
EDITORS ALTA: The introduction of coffee into our State is a matter which would not only require legislative aid at the outset, but in its
nurture, until the plants were acclimated, and experience had fairly
designated what portion of our State is best adapted to its culture. Its
introduction should have legislative aid, because anl exotic, which is already an article of successful commerce, when introduced by individual
enterprise, does not promise one tithe the profit to the first cultivator
which its presence confers upon the community. Its introduction and
culture in different parts of the State, through its time of acclimation,
and the five years it requires to bring the plant in full bearing, would
manifestly be at great outlay and expense to individuals; while success in any one quarter, would confer immense and lasting benefits to
the State and nation.
I do not mean by legislative aid, that the State should establish coffee
plantations, or pay the traveling expenses of those who would like to
visit foreign lands for coffee plants, but that a very liberal bonus or
premium should be offered for the production of the first one thousand
pounds of coffee in the southern, also in the central portion of the
State, leaving individual enterprise to do the rest. Our Legislature
will then make no mistakes, and incur no outlay, for which the State
does not receive more than an equivalent. Let the reward be large;
the State can afford to be liberal, and the people will do the rest.
We will now examine into the character of the plant, which will
give some indication of the chances of success. On this point, the experience of its acclimation in other countries is of value, and that has
been such that we may have strong faith it will kindly take to California soil and climate.  The coffee is in its full perfection in those countries where the soil is not too fertile, but possessing a very dry atmosphere, and an intense light - an intense heat does not appear so
desirable, for the coffee plantations of some countries have to be shaded.
Moisture at the root is necessary, and its cultivation at considerable
altitude practiced.
Of the region of California adjoining the bay, Vaca valley, and the
upper part of the Napa valley, appear to best fulfill these conditions;
but, probably, some locality further south will be found more desirable
than either. The plant bears a considerable range of climate, as its
successful cultivation at the La Plata and Cape of Good Hope would
indicate, for the climates of both these places are in strong contrast to
that of Abyssinia, the country of its origination, or of Arabia, from
which country it was introduced to European knowledge and notice.
Its powers of adaptability and vitality are sufficiently shown by the
fact, that nearly all the coffee of commerce can be traced to its origina tion in a single plant, procured from Arabia by "Van Hoorn," the
Dutch Governor of Batavia, between 1680 and 1690. Coffee, though
long in use by Eastern nations, does not appear in London until 1652,
nor in Paris until some time after. But to see how readily the coffee
plant adapts itself to new localities, and also the changes in quality of
the berry made by soil and climate-how the berry becomes large and
the flavor is lessened in a very rich soil, while the berry is small and 
85
the flavor rich in a more favorable locality-we have only to follow the
offshoots and berries from Van Hoorn's Arabian plants.
A plant was sent from Batavia to Amsterdam in 1690. From this,
in time, another was sent to Paris; from Paris seed was sent to Martinique and the Mauritius. We now lose direct track of it; but it is
easy to conceive the seed from Martinique and the Dutch colony of
Surinam, was spread over the balance of the West India Islands, and
down the coast of South America to the Southern Brazilian provinces,
and was also taken to Central America, and then down the west coast
of South America to Chile; that the seed from the Mauritius furnished
Madagascar, Zanzibar and the Cape Colony, and that the Spaniards
obtained their seed for the Philippines from Batavia.  On the Pacific,
the Tahiti plants were from Chile; and from the Society Islands are
traveling westward, being now colonized at the Fejees. The Sandwich
Island plaht may have been obtained from Manila, Batavia or Central
America, the nearest coffee countries-tracing directly or indirectly
nearly all the coffee of commerce to one plant, showing unmistakably
its vitality and power of enduring sea voyages when necessary.
The plantations we are most interested in, are those of the River
Plata, Chile and of the Cape of Good Hope, from the greater vicissitudes of climate to which the coffee plants are there exposed. There
will probably be little difficulty in obtaining the range of temperature
at the coffee plantations of the first two named countries, as many of
our citizens are familiar with them.  The extremes to which the plants
are exposed are probably greater at the Cape of Good Hope than any
other coffee country. A range of mountains covered with snow forms
one of the boundaries of the Cape Colony, and a warm ocean current
sweeps along another. These causes must create more vicissitudes in
that climate than ever occur in those parts of California to which we
might wish to introduce the coffee plant. It is safe to infer that a plant
which flourishes at the Cape of Good Hope, and exists in the latitude
of thirty-four on the east side of our continent, will conform to a range
of climate found in four to six degrees higher latitude on this side. So
much for the chances in favor of an undertaking pregnant with so much
of future benefit to the State and natiQn, and which, under proper legislation, can be achieved for the State without any cost, except in the
event of its success. The question is: Can the producers of this State
have that liberal legislative support that will encourage their enterprise,
until these novel productions to our State are added to the wealth of
its agriculture?
[NOTE.-Since the above was written, we notice there has been a
successful growth of coffee in Illinois.-ED.]
The Culture of Tea.
EDITORS ALTA:-The introduction of the culture of the tea plant in
our State now, is merely forestalling an event which soil, climate, situation, commerce and population all conspire to show is one of the facts
of the future. Our commercial relations with Northern China, the 
86
daily intercourse, business and manufactures, marked on the scale of
time as one of the chief pillars of the greatness of our State, would
bring this about from the familiarity of intercourse and production.
The Chinese population our gold has brought to us will, in time, naturally turn to agricultural pursuits, giving a first attention to those products with which custom in their own land has made them familliar,
and from their rarity with us would promise in their cultivation great
resources of profit; so that in moving now to introduce the tea plant to
our State, we are only obtaining for ourselves what our children would
have without such Iegislative aid as the effort will now call for. Tea
was introduced into the United States in 1848, and a small plantation
made in South Carolina. The early reports of its success were all
favorable, and doubtless would ere this have been a feature of our national agriculture, but for the great success of the culture of rice, tobacco
and cotton, affording such large profits to the region of country in which
it was introduced as to leave but.smalI desire for other crops.
The climate most congenial to the tea plant appears to be that between the 25th and 33d degree of latitude on the Asiatic coast; that it
will bear a more severe range of climate is shown by its culture in
Japan and the Himalayas; that it will bear a greater heat, its culture
in Cochin China and Tonquin as an article of commerce, and also as a
garden shrub in Singapore and Penang, where it is exposed to equatorial heat. The last experiment of its culture, fostered by the English
Government at the Himalayas, appears eminently successful. At an
agricultural fair held during the last season at Jeedarling, eight samples
of teas were offered in competition from different plantations, which
were pronounced equal in quality to the best imported teas.  The
best evidence, however, of its success is in the fact that the private investment in its culture, which had already reached 1,600.000 rupees,
was increasing, new plantations having been started.
The Dutch Government, however, with the commercial shrewdness
which characterizes that people, have successfully introduced its culture
in Java. The annual report of 1857, of the productions of that colony,
show an export or growth of 2,000,000 English pounds of tea, and that
the tea plantations contained 14,729,700 tea shrubs, giving employment to 110,000 families.   These instances show that tea plants can
be readily accustomed to a wide range of soil and climate, that the
secret of its culture and preparation cannot be hard of acquisition, when
the Javanese and Hindoos so readily acquire it. The next question is
of profit and competition with low-priced labor. It would seem almost
the rule in all low-priced labor countries, that freights and transport
are enormously high.  China is no exception to this rule, and the transport is farther burthened with heavy local duties and charges, as well
as export duties at the port of shipment.
When China was at peace, the freight alone on tea from the interior
was accounted at four cents per pound. Mandarin exactions could not
be counted at any less. If we take merchants' profits at the same rate,
shipping freight and commissions, etc., four more-making twenty
cents per pound-which add to our duty of fifteen cents, and we have a
total of thirty-five cents per pound, more or less, in favor of the home
production.  Now, in regard to the best method of mnaking it At once a 
87
California production, my own idea is that a very rapid and sure mode
of its acquisition will be to offer a round bonus to that China house
which shall first produce one thousand pounds of good black tea from
shrubs grown in our mountains, and another for tea grown on the
plains. The object of thle double offer is to secure its culture in different parts of the State, and turn the Chinamen's attention at once to this
business.
If we arrive at making it a Californian production, on the plan proposed, we divest the operation of all features of risk; we bring in play
all the shrewdness skill, and knowledge of its culture the Chinaman
possesses, and take the first step in placing this class of our population
in an employment in which there is no competition and interference
with any other.  Increase the stimulant by allowing them to choose
any piece of public land for their experiment, make the bonus liberal,
let them understand the competition is free, and my full belief is, the
sons of Shem can be soon made to add to our State's wealth far more
than they have extracted from our mines. It will be a happy day for
California when this increasing population of Chinadom can be made
to add their knowledge and labor to material sources of wealth and
profit to the State in developing new branches of our agriculture.
The Conclusion of Letters on Agricultural Interests.
EDITORS ALTA:-I have now gone pretty well over the range of
farm product, of what we have raised and what we may raise, although
not embracing all the crop we have cultivated, or may produce, nor
have I spoken of the root and vegetable crops which experience has
confined to certain localities, but I think I have gone far enough to show
that the farmers need, and can command a greater variety of product,
and that the continuous culture of the cereals on the same soil is
neither practicable or profitable. I think the farmer has no right to
expect that so long as our mines continue profitable, the wages of glabor
will fall more than twenty-five per cent. from their present standard.
Twenty-five per cent. will reduce the cost of cultivation, "say" one
dollar and seventy-five cents per acre on average farms, a reduction
not great enough to render general grain farming profitable at the prices
of last year's harvest.  Again: while we look to export demand for
the sale of the larger portions of our cereal crops, and also while the
farmer is obliged to look to the sale of these crops to meet his current
expenses, he cannot expect prices, as the rule, will range above those
of the two last harvests. The exceptions are-very short crops in this
State, or the demand brought about by war, or short crops in other
States.  The demand in the Northern hemisphere is not felt or made
until September and October, just when the California farmer is thinking about a new crop; this demand, and consequent rise in price, has
not been infrequent, but it is invariably too late for the benefit of the
great mass of California farmers, as the price at harvest fixes their scale
of profit or loss for the year's labor. On the contrary, the rise in price
is generally at that season to best encourage him to renewed exertions 
88
which in the past have proved like the swamp lights followed by the
benighted traveler, only the means of bringing him deeper into the
financial quagmire of short crops and low prices.  It is evident only
large crops of cereals will pay to raise; from old land, large crops can
only be raised byjudicious rest, manure and fallow; the fallow must be
made to pay, for the profit of a bountiful cereal crop is not enough to
pay two years' labor.
The crop must be diversified, so that some crop which has a local
demnand can be used to meet the current expense of the cereal crop,
that the grain may be held until the foreign demand springs up in the
fall and winter. A home market must be created by the patronage and
use of Californian manufactures, for local, intermediate, perishable or
fibrous crops. A lower range of interest must be made in the agricultural districts. This can be done by the establishment of savings and
loan societies in every agricultural county.  There appears to be  no
other mode in which the dormant tens and hundreds of the agricultural
districts can be combined into the thousands which would lessen interest, and be, in reality, to the farming communities, what they are, nominally-their capital.  The farmer's business should be rendered more
secure-the present attachment law constantly leaves it at too great a
risk. This law should be modified so that the first attaching creditor
attaches for the benefit of all the creditors; make it all the creditors'
interest that property should not be sacrificed. No farmer can pay his
debts, no agricultural community can prosper when in the event of
short crops or low prices of produce, the farmer's grain may be sold
by the Sheriff for one-half its value, his stock at one-fourth, and his
tools and material at one-tenth or one-thirtieth of their cost or value to
him.
If any class in our community want this law for their own benefit,
let them have it; but let us, as farmers, take care that no representative
of ours gets our vote the second time, who does not try, at least, to, cut
short its application to the agricultural districts. Next, the matter of
taxes needs our attention; the tariff of State expenditure was made when
money was plenty and business good. I know of no good reason or
service rendered by any official that calls for a salary equal to the
earnings of the year of from ten to thirty farmers and their families.
I believe in liberal payment to public officers; but I do not believe in
paying them, and expending, in other ways, the whole net income of
some districts, which is very near the case, though strongly put, at the
present scale of profit of the labors of our agriculturists.  Lessen the
labor of your officials and the trespass on your own time, by lessening
the number of courts held each year in the agricultural counties.
Secure control of your own county affairs, by changing the time of
your local election. As it now is, with the election just at the close of
harvest, the affairs of agricultural counties are too often controlled by
the votes of irresponsible strangers. Impress upon the Legislature
that, while lessening unnecessary expenditure, and giving the Federal
Government all needful and possible aid, the necessity that exists that
some present and prospective outlay must be made, which will directly
benefit the agriculturists, and through them the State, in assisting the
introduction of crops, and their after manufacture, which have as yet
I 
89
no home with us. Ftmers, if we help ourselves in the way I have
first named, and make others help us in the way I have last written, we
shall, in the opinion of a journeyman farmer, have learned "how to
make farming profitable;" and in writing these letters, I trust I have
assisted in the sowing of seed which will bring forth a profitable crop,
in thoughts, that will benefit Californian agriculture.
APPENDIX.
An Appeal for Legislative Aid to California Industry.
It may not be improper for an individual whose occupation is solely
that of agriculture, to thus call the attention of his State government
to the depressing circumstances under which this great interest now
suffers; and in a measure, to point out a policy, which, in his judgment would go far to lessen this depression, and in time accomplish an
adequate relief. For this sole object has this pamphlet been published,
and placed before the California Legislature, written in such spare moments as other occupation has afforded; its pages do not contain a tithe
of what may be said in regard to the great interests of our State on
which it treats; but if in them may be found enough of fact and argument to enlist favorable legislative consideration; to enactments stimulative to greater diversity of crops, and more of self dependence on
the productions of our soil and workshops, the end and aim of the
writer will have been accomplished. It is necessary these interests
should receive attention from the State governmont on account of our
relations to the other States in matters of business, and from some peculiarities in our own Constitution.
A stringent tariff compels our purchase from the other States of the
Union the bulk of the articles of our daily use. Our situation makes
this tariff, (always treating the subject in a business point of view) a
benefit to them and against the people of our own State.  This same
distance from the other States, and want of proper mail and steam
communications, renders anything like fair reciprocity of trade impossible. Thus we bear our due proportion of the expenses of the gen
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eral government, without the full measure of ia, business benefits; our
contribution to the business interests of the ot~r States being always
far greater than their contributions to the business interests of California.
Next, our State constitution requiring a metallic currency, and the
other States having a paper currency, values, exchanges, time and interest are always against us in business transactions.  The wants and
necessities of a young country constantly compel our purchases to be
far greater than our sales, creating a steady drain of bullion for
which we scarcely Save a choice of market, that keeps our currency
short, capital limited, and the current rates of interest high.
Whenever our industrial forces produce more of any given article
than our State can consume, the price of that article in the lowest
labor countries must set its value here, and as these values are seldom
remunerative to our producers, we will under the present system of
agriculture in our State frequently find ourselves in a business depression, onerous in the same ratio with the energy of its prosecution.
- The consequences of this combination of circumstances are bringing
about a disinclination and timidity in new investment, and a feeling
akin to discontent.   All those who closely scan the business interests of our State, will find the desire of change and better progress
a predominant feeling. This is more particularly the case with the
great agricultural interest; individuals in that occupation now too frequently paying their taxes from their capital instead of from their
profit; while it has in a measure lost those features of safety and permanency which accomplish so much for the stable prosperity of the
community.
Thus, while the occupation of a large class of our present population
has for a time ceased to be remunerative, the avenues of employment to
the new-comer have not increased, a fact which will readily come home
to all those who endeavor to find business or employment for others.
None are so blind to the interests of our State as not to see how all
the above enumerated disabilities press upon our resources and progress
none but desire that a change for the better should be brought about.
The only question is: How and in what manner shall this change be
effected, and the desired good accomplished? It is an anomalous position- -one in which, in all respects, I have learned of no similar instance; the nearest, perhaps, was that of the Spanish American colo
nies.  Its results.to them convey sufficient warning for us to avoid the
example.  It is a position in which none of the old arguments of free
trade and tariffs are applicable. Our business and all our imports are
taxed under three tariffs-that of the General Government, that of
metallic currency against paper, and the extraordinary rates of interest,
all inevitable under our present and prospective circumstances- a state
of affairs which must have legislative consideration, for it is one which
has been mainly brought about by constitutional provision.  They are
circumstances which admit of present control, and are also circum
stances in which to a great measure change is pot desirable, for both
tariff and metallic currency have their very great advantages;  but
what is wanted, is the one step farther in our State's progress, Which will
neutralize their bad features and leave us only the 0good 
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This the writer believes will be arrived at by liberal premiums from
the State, that will entourage and' warm into life new production from
both our soil and workshops.  We  only want theplant above ground;
we only need to hear the ring of the hammer, and the hum of the
wheel, and the object is accomplished, and the State's further aid is
unnecessary.  For it is a happy thug for our California that once any
growth or manufacture obtains a foothold with us, distance from other
States, time, interest and freights are all a special dispensation in its
favor, and sufficient to secure its success. It is the initial step, the
germ only, our State government has to foster, to accomplish all these
desired objects; and the appropriation required for this purpose bears
not the remotest comparison to the magnitude of the popular interests
to be benefited. It is in truth casting our bread upon the waters, to
return in a few short years in a diversified employment and business to
a stable population, and a threefold increase in every element of our
prosperity and taxable wealth. By it we will secure employment for
our workers of every grade-on our lands, in our workshops, on our
roads, and on our ships. We will decrease our imports, enlarge our
exports, chain capital here, draw wealth from other lands, and build up
homes, villages and cities from an immigration ever welcome to an
abundance of remunerative employments.
Are not these objects worthy of a statesman's care, and legitimate
subjects of legislative interest? I believe thl)e gentlemen who now
control, by their votes, the interests of this great State, will see this
matter in its true light of great general public interest and importance,
and will make such enactments as will meet the wants and desires of
the agriculturists of this State, and inaugurate a policy that will so
much enlarge the social and business interests of California, that their
session will be gratefully remembered long after local issues and legislation have been forgotten in the lapse of time.
With all respect, gentlemen, I beg leave to sign myself a representative of
CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURE.
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I NDEX.
OUR MATERIAL INTERESTS.
PAGE.
Our Material Intersts-Are we to have a Policy that will Develop them? -.... 3
What are Evidences of the Prosperity of the State?........................ 5
A Review of Present Business.....................................7
The Range of Present Occupation, and Necessity of Change..............9
What Home Manufactures have done for other Nations, and what California
pays to other States.................................................11
How the State Government may Develop our Resources.................... 13
HOME MANUFACTURES.
New Channels for California Trade and Industry...........................15
Manufacturifl Chinese Cotton in California.........................16
Increase ann ecrease of Asiatic Cottons............................ 17
Asiatic Production of Cotton............................................17
Extent of Asiatic Cotton Lands and Scarcity of Timber...................19
Our Industrial Interests.................................................20
Californian Manufactures and their Export.................................20
Cotton Productpf the South Sea Islands................................21
Cotton Import Nssisting Home Production............................... 22
Extent of Cotton Lands, and the Value of Manufactures to General Business.. 23
Available Labor for Home Manufactures..................................24
Benefit to Individuals...................................................25
The Manufacture of Manila Rope........................................ 26
Soap, Oils, etc............................................. 27
Shoe and Leather Trade...............................................28
INDUSTRIAL INTERESTS.
The Drain of Capital from the Interior Cities to San Francisco..............30
The Value of Diversified Agricultural Products to our Inland Cities........ 31
The Culture of Cotton, and the Value of the Tree Cotton to California......33
The Development of our Industrial Interests should be the Policy of our State..33
Cultivation of Tree Cotton..............................................37
The Chinese question as connected with our Industrial Interests..............38
OUR LABOR INTERESTS.
The Value of Joint Stock Labor Associations.............................41
What the Labor Forces of our State may accomplish.....................42
Business which will Accrue to California from the Opening of the Chinese
Rivers................................;............................43
The Power Joint Stock Association would give the Labor Interests of San
Francisco...........................................................45
What Associated Labor has Accomplished................................46
Will the Prosperity of the California Workingmen Continue............47
Opening of New Business for Associated Lacor..........................49
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OUR AGRICULTURAL INTERESTS.
Necessity of a Diversity of Crops........................................51
Depression of the Farming Business............................ 53
Disadvantage under which the California Farmer Prosecutes his Business.  55
The Value and Cost of Farm L a b o r......................................57
Amount of Capital necessary in Agriculture............................... 58
Amount of Cereal Crop and Method of Cultivation........................60
Costs of Farming in different Soils........................................62
Costs of Grain-Growing................................................63
Expense of Wheat-Growing..............................................64
Advantages of Changes and Rotation of Crops............................67
The Number of Farmers Ruined by Exclusive Culture of Cereal Crops......69
Orchard Cultivation, and the Sale of Fruits................................70
Culture of Berries, Sorghum, Beet-root, Tobacco and Flax..................72
Productions and Manufactures that are Legitimate Objects of Legislative Aid..73
Woolen Manufactures and their Market...................................75
The Growth and Manufactures of Sugar in California..................... 77
Flax Culture-Advantage of its Introduction in our State................ 79
The Production of Cotton, and the Cost of its Culture in California..........80
Chinese Labor as Adapted to Cotton Culture...............................82
Culture of Coffee.........................................................84
The Cu'lture of Tea.......................................................85
The Conclusion of Letters on Agricultural Interests........................87
APPENDIX.
An Appeal for Legislative Aid to California Industry....................... 89
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