The hydraulic press., 1858-11-20
CHANCES FOR FORTUNES.

How common it is to hear men sigh
for the good old days of 40 and 80 |!
One would suppose, to hear them, that
the sun Of prosperity set forever when
those famous years were numbered with
the past; or, at least, that the star of
their individual good luck had sunk
never to rise again.
There are other men, again, who
would fain recall each successive year
that has come and gone since those first
golden ones. Their Retrospective glances
fall upon splendid opportunities, rare
chances, certainties thrown wilfully
away; but, in the present, they discern
no hope, no incentive, no prospect of
success. Yet when this very year,
which now seems so barren, has been
numbered with its predecessors, it
becomes radiant like them with lost
chances. And thus it will continue;
fortune will modestly court them every
year, and they will never know it until
she is dead, or has thrown herself into
the arms of less stupid admirers. The
truth is, there never were better chances
for the willing mind and arm than there
are in California to-day. Wealth can
not be so easily picked up on the rivers
bank or from the ravines where nature
deposited it, but the more legitimate
modes Of obtaining it are far from being
exhausted. The various kinds of pro-
ductive industry, the useful arts which
minister to mans wants or promote his
enjoyment, are hardly yet entered upon
in this State. We have all been too
busy raking in the earth for jewels
seeking buried treasures, ready to our
our hands-to think of pursuing the
ordinary healthful avocations which
alone can build up private and public
prosperity on apermanent basis. After
ten years, we are awaking to the thous-
and advantages afforded by "a new coun-
try, and some are improving them. But
the class of chronic croakers to whom
allusion has been made have their eyes
set in the backs of their heads, and only
see the advantages that belonged to the
past. They even ridicule the patient
plodder who begins some apparently
unpromising enterprise, until he bushes
them into wonder by his complete sue
cess.
We tell these mOurners over dead
years, as the revivalists tell sinners, that
no,o is the day and no,o the accepted
hour. Even in this little community
there are unembraced facilities for ac-
quiring wealth. This is destined to be
more than a mere mining camp, and
those who, acting upon this conviction,
labor to develope other resources, will be
living in comfort and ease some years
hence, when the forty-niners are still
poor and respondent, telling their won
derful stories of the early gold days to
gaping or incredulous bar-room cronies.
The first persons who plant vineyard
in this vicinity, or who systematically
and extensively pursue gardening, or
who introduce wool and mutton grow
ing, we believe will certainly meet with
success. There is splendid opening,
also, for the dairy business; for the
raising Of poultry; for fruit culture; for
many different trades. Nearly every
pound of butter and cheese consumed
here is brought from other places, and
most Of it is imported from abroad. The
apples we eat, and we eat great many
now at very high price, are brought
from Oregon, when they might be rails
ed at our own doors in the prolific
vallies, or on the warm hill-sides which
are lying unoccupied.
The industrial pursuits We have men
toned would not only enrich those who
enter upon them, but they would in
crease the means of the whole commu-
nifty by keeping at home what now goes
through many hands to swell the boards
of Eastern merchants. It would give
our town stability, increase the value Of
real estate, attract and support larger
nonu1ation and reconcile onr discon.