Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-05-14
IHrERcHANG1HG VISITS.
The Advantage of Seeing What I
Neighbors Have Done.


INTERCHANGING VISITS.
The Advantage of Seeing What Our
Neighbors Have Done.
In letter to the Chino Valley Cham
pion, under date of April 29th, VIM. H.
Mills, Vice-President of the State Board of
Trade, says:
| received in the mail this morning
copy of your paper, dated Friday, April
18th, containing an editorial on the propo-
sition to secure some interchange of visits
between the various portions of the State,
with view of disseminating broader in
telligence concerning its capacity, etc.
Heretofore many portions of the State
have complained of a loss of capital and
population to other portions. The objec-
tion of those who have a right to make
this complaint is in sense we'll taken.
The climatic advantages of the State are
about equally distributed. The soil is
equally prolific in nearly all portions of
the great and small valleys. In some To-
calities truer appreciation of the oppor-
tunities afforded by the diversified agri
culture of the country arises, and Just as
soon as growth follows the Inauguration of
a better spirit of progress and enterprise,
people from other portions of the State
come in to reinforce the capital and aug
ment the industrial capacity of the grow
ing locality. They have,left conditions in
all respects analogous to those they are
seeking, except perhaps the one element of
having left slow community for one
wherein better spirit of enterprise has
possession of the public mind.
The suggestion that localities where
primitive development was noticeable
would do well to visit localities where the
higher possibilities of California found
illustrative example, has been met by
some with the objection that their locali-
ties have already suffered enough from the
drain made upon them by such cities as
Los Angeles, San Bernardino and San
Diego. The answer to this is not far to
seek. The way to arrest the emigration
of the enterprising people of any locality
is to satisfy that spirit of enterprise at
home. To all men, the removal of their
homes from one locality to another is
matter of very serious import. AS a rule,
such removals are due entirely to the
belief that the objective point of their
emigration is on the eve of growth and de-
velopment.
For full century the United States has
grown rich almost solely through the in
crease of population. Nothing has value
in uninhabited countries, while everything
acquires value in proportion to the density
of population. This must be true, because
the soils, forests and mines have value as
demands are made upon them in satisfac-
ton of the objects of human desire, and
the larger the population the greater this
demand. Our people have for many years
been trained in the direction of acquiring
wealth by acquiring a foothold in unde-
veloped portions of the country, acquiring
property at undeveloped values, and grow
ing rich through this development.
A man moves from one portion of the
State to another, leaving one community
behind him, in the hope of placing HIM
self before tide of rapidly advancing
values. He hears that rapid growth has
set up in some locality he therefore sells
out home and purchases in the locality,
in hope Of increment of value. Often the
same condition starts up behind him. The
physical conditions he left were precisely
analogous to those he sought, and the ex-
ample of the new locality sometimes be-
comes contagious in the old; and to his
modification the emigrant often finds that
the property he sold took on an immedi-
ate enhancement after his leaving it and
accrued into greater values than the prop
city he purchased in his new home. This
has been observed of States Many men
who left Illinois and Indiana for Kansas
were unconsciously fleeing from an in
crement of values which proved eventually
to be much greater than those they sought
and found. The people of Southern Cali
fornia are justifying to the comprehension
of the world the vast undeveloped re-
sources residing in the fertility of the soil
under more fayoring climatic conditions
than are known in the old States of the
Union. The State owes to them an I'M
discharged and lasting debt of gratitude.
The people of other sections of the State
in large numbers joined in to swell the
volume of emigration in the SOUTH leav-
ing attractions equally seductive if they
had only been rightly understood.
beg leave to acknowledge my obliga-
ton to you for your very complimentary
notice, and for the intelligent assistance
you are rendering to make our people ac-
Hudiutcu VIII tutSc ldCts. IL Is lQueeU q
curious study to observe the extent to
which communities acquire and maintain
certain industrial characteristics. A few
examples of wealth suddenly acquired IN
stock raising, or mining or fruit-growing,
are sufficient to set the currents of all
community life drifting in that direction.
A few examples of successful Embarrassing
in a community will cover the landscape
with orchards. 1t is for this reason far
more than any other climatic difference
that fruit-growing, stock-raising and wheat
raising are grouped over the surface of the
State. / do not wish to be understood in
this as saying that mining might be prac-
ticed in wheat-growing section, or wheat
growing followed to advantage to the foot
hills. | am simply indulging in a general
rather than specific statement.
am also aware that local climate favors
the growth of various products, but ] reas-
sert the general proposition that the tend
ency of falling into the ruts of tried enter
prise assails community as well as individ.
ual life; that the enterprises regarded as
standard industries in various localities
maintain that condition through an inert
consent, which in many localities in Cali
fornia has absolutely arrested development.