Sacramento daily record-union., 1890-09-19

l
change the seat of population from one
country to another. Populations are moved
| from the older to the newer portions of the
world in the hope of finding an environ
ment more favorable to personal prosperity.
In our own country populations have left
the well-developed regions for the more
\ sparsely-settled Territories in the hope of
acquiring property at undeveloped values,
and thus securing the advantage of the in
evitable and coming development. Allured
| by the hope of sudden wealth, distance
could not discourage, and hardship could
not deter the great tide of incoming popu-
| lstion. In modified way there is lesson
in this; where actual prosperity exists
population comes by the force of an ire
sistible invitation; where prosperity is
merely promised, immigration can be in
duced only by argument and persuasion.
A genuine prosperity in our State will
| bring us reinforcement of industrial
population uninvited, except by the CO.
gency of prosperity itself.
The gold-seekers formed the basis of our
| population they laid the foundations of
our social and political structure; they
made the mold in which the elements of
our civilization were cast. They were an
enterprising people to the very verge of
being speculative and adventurous. The
| influences of primitive conditions are very
difficult of eradication. The pioneer pop
ulation of any country gives direction,
color and character to its growth. The
primitive conditions, therefore, exert an
| influence upon the character of populations
long after those conditions have passed
away. We are by no means entirely eman
cipated from the influences of our earliest
environment. The speculative spirit is at
war with methodical and plodding in
dustry. The diligent industry and method
| ical habits, to which we are so much in
| debted for the development of our agricult-
ural and horticultural industries, are
| attributes of more recent growth hence it
may be truthfully said that our population,
but forty years old, has less than twenty
years of development, when those enter
prises and industries relating to its real
and permanent sources of prosperity are
considered. When success in the search
for gold ceased to be as hazardous as lot
terry. and successful mining became de-
pendent upon more thoughtful and intelli-
gent methods, for many years the attention
of the world was withdrawn from Califor-
MIA. The attention was revived with the
stock speculative period, the most ipjur-
ious period IL our history. During the
many years of its pernicuous prevalence,
our best enterprise and large portion of
our capital were employed in the discovery
| and operation of silver mines. In spite of
all these, however, the good work of Great
ing commonwealth, founded upon the
enduring industries invited by the fertility
of the soil, had gone on, and since the sub
sidence of the speculative period, has made
year by year gratifying progress Great
commonwealths cannot be founded upon
the exceptional and the unusual. The
wealth of every State and every nation is
found in the industrial capacity of its
people, and ia the direction of this indus
trial capacity in producing the natural and
legitimate objects of human desire. 1t is,
therefore, fairly within the lines of reason
able representation to say that the founda-
tons of California, which are to endure and
are to grow into an empire of wealth and
population, were laid less than twenty years
ago. The real and enduring industries of
our State are less than twenty years of age.
In this great respect our annals are mis-
leading. We were admitted a State into
the Union forty years ago, but the Cali
fornia of the first twenty years of this
period saw its morning of promise, its
midday splendor of romantic adventure
and its declining afternoon. The new
creation of this commonwealth is now in
its earliest dawn. Our annals may there
history and the California of prophecy
Forgetting the past and looking to the
future, the first consideration which ar
rests our attention is our geographical po-
sition.
ECONOMIC COMMUNICATIONS THE EQUIVALENT
OF PHYSICAL coNTIGUITY.
Since the birth of this State great eco
noniic force has come into operation. /
refer to cheap and rapid communication.
Economic transportation is the equivalent
of physical contlguitv. Let us make this
plain. Go back in the history of produc-
ton and transportation hundred years,
and you will find that the area of the
profitable production of wheat did not ex-
tend beyond twenty-four miles from the
market for that cereal. The profitable area
of production for hay did not reach be-
yond ten miles of its market. The area of
the profitable production of garden stuff,
being little higher class, had somewhat
greater extent. We may, however, safely
say that one hundred years ago the area of
the profitable production of all the products
of the soil did not exceed twenty-five miles
by land. The distance that food products
could be carried by water was far greater,
but at the beginning of the present century
twenty-five miles from navigable water
constituted the area of profitable produc-
ton for nearly all species of field culture.
Navigable waterways of the country form
channels of cheap communication; hence
cities and towns sprung up along the banks
of navigable rivers; they were marts of ex
change. Beyond them a distance of
twenty-five or thirty miles the limit of
profitable production was reached. The
grazing interests were somewhat better off.
Fatted hogs could be driven from 100 to
I oo1lI bo Ir,x lxy
500 miles, and horses were known to be
taken over thousand miles The advent
of railroads came, and here around the
city in which you are holding this fair
garden vegetables are raised for markets in
Denver, Col, and st. Louis, Mo.-even far
beyond these limits. Vegetables are raised
in the vicinity of this city for the New
York market, 3,1SS miles distant. Thus
the radius of profitable production sweeps
over limit of land transportation 5000
miles long, as against length of twenty
five or thirty miles before the advent of
steam transportation by railroad on land
and steam navigation on the ocean. We
shipped from California in 1880 2,SS0,000
pounds of garden vegetables. There has
been a gradual aud steady increase of the
shipments under this head until in 1888
they had risen to 100000 pounds, or
HiOEe budH lcb tltuts Tic luunllNg Suippcu
in 1880. The same ratio of increase for
eight years more would give us 800, ,000,0 900
pounds, and who shall say that the proper
tionate increase will not be realized?
This doctrine that economic communica-
ton may becomethe equivalent of physical
contiguity is the basis of all we hope for
1t is the most far reaching and significant
factor in the future of California. Three
days ordinary wages in England will pay
! the cost of transportation on one years
supply of breadstuffs for an individual,
from the most inaccessible and distant
wheat-producing zones of the world. The
| cost grows less as you approach the sea-
board. Breadstuffs are carried distances
which are practically unlimited along the
commercial pathways of the globe. Fruits,
green and canned, are exchanged with
every portion of the earth, and rice is
practically as cheap in one portion OF the
uvarI2 onnthor STOCK sc od