Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-12-03
AGRICULTURAL.
II TIER PREPARED SPECIALLY FOR
TIE "REcoRD UNION"
The Farmer Princes Of California -supe-
riority Of the Harvesting Machinery
Used on the Pacific Coast-Ete.

U6eu OH tH6 EdclAC SooSs-
The term merchant princes has become
quite common in the United States as applied
to men who have been successful as mer-
chants, and who have accumulated fortunes
by their success in the prosecution OF their
chosen occupation or business. Tbs term is
an honorable one, and by It's reference to
title of nobility recognized in monsrchical
governments, conveys the idea OF high social
position as we'll as successful enterprise. On
account of its having been won by the intel
leent and successful efforts of these 20 which
il is applied, it is much more to be priced
than the inherited title to which it refers.
Merchant prince in America is q much higher
title than simply Prince Of Wales or any other
princeton in England. The one stands
for intelligence. enterprise, integrity and
honorable success. while the other
may and frequently does mean nothing more
than an empty title inherited from titled
ancestry, and frequently by imbeciles who
have no personal merit, and who give no
honor to the title they bear. We have now
in California perhaps larger number of
merchant princes, il proportion to the num-
Der OF persons engaged in the mercantile bus
mess, than in any other State in the Union.
Our merchant princes are generally self-made
men, from the ground up. They are gener-
ally the architects of their own characters
and fortunes, not having even inherited
or come into possession of their occupations
through the old established firms of an ances-
try of merchants. So we have farmer princes
among US. who are equally the originators
and builders of their own fortunes, and who
have won their distinction solely by their own
intelligent exertions who have indeed made
themselves and their surroundings from the
foundation up. As class the California
farmers are more intelligent and more en-
terpIising than the farmers of any other
State or country in the world. They
ara, as class, farmers, not because
their fathers before them were farmers, but
because they have selected this occupation
from choice aud pursued it from inclination.
The California farmers, in whatever depart
ment of agricultural practice they may be
found engaged, are pursuing those practices,
not because they are in the same grove their
fathers travelled in, but because reason and
experience dictates their course. In what
other country is wheat.growiTg, for Instance,
conducted upon so perfect system and with
SO great economy as in this State. By the
use OF the gang pillow the soil is broken up
with about one-third the amount of human
labor that is required or used in most other
countries where the single pillow is still in use.
Here the best af broadcast sewers and cuiti-
vators combined are almost In universal use,
and by their means the grain is put in much
quicker, better, and at less cost than else
where.
California harvesting machines are ahead
of harvesters used in any other country, and
these machines have been especially adapted
to the peculiar conditions of our grain through
the intelligence and inventive genius of our
practical farmers-our farmer princes. In no
other country has the thrashing and cleaning
of grain been reduced to science as it has in
this State. The steam engine first supple.
mented horsepower to propel the thrashing
machine in California, and straw was first
used here as means of creating steam.
Here as in no other country the thrashing out
fit embraces all the men and appliances for
taking the standing grain and delivering the
cleaned grain In the sack with one operation,
ready for market. Here the thrashing gang
move their kitchen and dining-room. dishes.
all cooking utensils, along with them, and
board themselves, giving the farmer no
more trouble or Inconvenience while his grain
is being thrashed than at any other time of
the year. Thus the grain farmer and his
family in California ara IN greater measure
than in any other country relieved from the
| drudgsry and hard labor attending the same
| | u iness, and at the same time this general
and successful use of labor.saving machinery
enables him to live on bis farm as prince on
his princeton in tbs old countriss-a farmer
| prince.
If we look into other departments of agri-
culture in California we shall find the same
superiority Of management over the same de.
pa,tments as conducted in other States and
| other countries The very surroundings in
vite great enterprises, and naturally lead to
! great improvements and great successes.
| Take dairying in California, as compared with
| the same occupation elsewhere. and we
| find il carried on on much more extensive
! scale here than anywhere else in the world.
! Where outside of California do we find
| two and three thousand COWS MIXED and
managed under the immediate supervision of
one man, and the milk made into butter CT
| cheese under the same supervision? Where
outside Of California do we fnd such dairy
| men as Shafter, Steele or an
Abbott Where indeed such farmer
princes, made SO by the ownership
aud successful management OF daifies
| IF we consult the national csnsus for the COM
paratiye results of the dairy business in the
different States, we shall find that although
California twenty years ago was not regarded
as State in which butter could be made
even in quantities for home consum ption, of
good quality, that she is to-day ahead of all
her sisters in the quantity of butter made to
the COW, considering the number of COWS
| MIXED in the State, Ohio and New York
rating next, but neither coming up TO our
! State by from ten TO twenty per cent. Our
climate, which in early days was considered
an insurmountabie barrier to successful
dairyipg, has proved to be mora favor
able than that of any other State in
the Union. The absence Of extreme cold
in winter, and of extreme sultry heat
| in summer give California great advantages
not only in the time that cows may be MIXED
duriog each year, but are also favorable to
the quantity ard quality of the product.
| Some CT our dairy establishments are more
perfect in their appointments, and in the
tools and labor-saving machinery used, than
can be found elsewhere in the world.
So, if we turn our attention to grape cult
ure and wine and brandy, or raisin manu-
| facture, California, even In these compare
lively new Industries, is ahead of the world.
The largest vineyard in the world with an
! Individual ownership is in Los Angeles
county, and the largest raisin manu-.
facturer making the raisins from grapes
grown in his own vineyard, under his own
supervision, is in Solano county, while there
are in many other counties hundreds of vine
yards the extent and superior management
| of which are objects OF wonder to the people
of Southern Europe who have visited them.
Such men as Blowers, Briggs. Hsraszthy and
Rose, and hundreds of others we could name,
engaged in the culture of the vine and the
manufacture of its products, are indeed richly
| IL g 60,