Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-06-02


The law which permits the miner to To-
cate claims upon lind already taken up and
used for agricultural purposes is responsible
for all these abuses. 1t is not wise nor
an expedient law, and it is time it was
inquired into with view to its abrogation.
1t rests on the assumption that everything
must give way to mining, and that assump-
ton is not tenable or defensble. There is
no reason why any prospector should pos
sees better right to the minerals which
may lie beneath the surface of an agricult-
urai claim than the holder of that claim
possesses. The public good is not served
by allowing miners to override agricultural
locations, to destroy ranches upon which
the toll of years has been expended, to
waste and ravage and ruin homesteads and
gardens and farms The miner is q
nomad. He comes and burrows
in the ground, or washes its sur
face, away to the injury Of our rivers and
the dosolation of our valleys, and then
he goes away and leaves a desert behind
him. The mineral wealth thus extracted
from agricultural claims is no compensation
20 the State for the mischief wrought in
the process. The cultivation Of the foot
Hill lands is of more consequence to Cali
iornia than the discovery or working Of
any quantity of new mines, But it does
not follow that il the minera We're debarred
from this ruthless invasion of agricultural
lands, the minerals they contain would not
be developed On the contrary, it is to be
nationally expected that farmer who finds
minerals on his land will work them. The
only difference viii be that il the mines on
such lands are opened by those who own
the land, the works will not be
suffered to inaict irreparable injury
upon the land When man takes
up an agricultural claim he ought
to be vested with all the soil covers
OF contains. That is tine common-sense
policy, and that is the only policy which
can guarantee the settlement of our foot
hill lands. Nothing indeed can be more
opposed to public interest than the existing
state Of the law That law in effect dis
couragcs agriculture in the most emphatic
and direct manner. 1t says to the farmer,
You shall have no satisfactory title TO
your land II you choose to cultivate
1T you may, but the prospeetor may at
any time come down upon you and de
stroy the Iabors OF years, and not only
&c shall you have no compensation for this
injury, but You shall be made to pay
"roandly for the privilege OF being de-
"prived Of yo..r hand.
We assert that this is a condition of
things which cannot be tolerated any
longer The people of California are con-
tinually crying out for more and quicker
settlement. The press devotes its space
to elaborate demonstrations of the fertility
of the foothill lands And in the teeth of
this general desire for increase of agricul-
tural population, and as if to ilout the
acknowledged richness of the foothill pro-
ductiyeness, stand these mining laws, like
lions in the path, grizzly declaring that
whoever is rash enough 20 take up ranch
in the foothills must do so at his peril.
Upon what principle of justice or reason or
public expediency is the farmer thus placed
at the mercy OF the miner The theory
that mining is the one great interest of this
coast, to lie fostered and protected at the
sacrifice of everything aud everybody, has
long since been exploded. We know row
that the dependence OF California hence
forth must be upon agriculture, and
that mining can only play a subordinate
part in State development. But
notwithstanding this change OF view,
we continue to submit stolidly to a sys-
TEN of legislation which is the worst con-
ceiyable hindrance to the expansion OF
our agricultural policy, and we continue TO
wonder why people do not swarm into the
foothills, while we are doing nothing to
remove obstacles to settlement formidable
enough to drive every present resident of
that region out of the country in despair
and disgust. We need not expect, we
cannot hope, that the foothill lands will
be settled up so long as the farmer cannot
obtain full and complete title to his hold.
ing. If we want that region opened up
we must exert ourselves to bring about a
radical change in the mining laws, and We
are convinced that the only satisfactory