The record-union., 1891-01-29
FACTS OF VALUE.
Address by Gen. N. P. Chapman
at the State Citrus Fair.
Our Climate Contrasted With That of
Other Places-The Results of Fruit
Growing and of Wheat Farming
Compared-Importan Facts.

Chapman, of Red Bluff. at the State
Citrus Fair in Marysville, January 18th,
contains SO much valuable information
that we publish it in full. General Chip
man said:
Mr.. President, Ladies and Gentlemen ::
Five years ago few persons residing in
the city OF Sacramento conceived the idea
OF holding a fair for the exhibition of
citrus fruits grown in Northern Califor-
MIA. was invited by the Committee of
Arrangements to attend and speak
word for Tehama county. l wrote dis
couraging letter, and suggested that, in
my opinion, we had better expend our
efforts in the encouragement of deciduous
fruits, for which we knew our soil and
climate to be adapted, and in which I
thought our region would find source of
wealth and greater prosperity My adj
vice was not needed, and the announce
ment of a citrus fair to be held January
IL, 1856, was published. / resolved to go,
and l further resolved to proclaim my
unbelief in the adaptability of our climate
to orange-growing.
went, and when / entered that great
hall and beheld the immense wall space
and those great pyramids, and tier upon
tier of exquisitely blended colors, painted
as no man ever painted; when L looked
around me and saw the bright faces from
Oroville, from Marysville, from Placer
vile, from Newcastle, from Shasta, from
Woodland, Vacayille, Winters, and from
Sacramento, beaming with delight, and,
conscious of success, cried out like one
of old, Lord, believe; help thou my
unbelief."
The Fair was great event for us.
Northern California was then and there
discovered. There was not that dra-
matte interest in the discovery that sur
rounded the finding of gold not far dis
tant from that city in 1919, but I think in
years to come it will rank as an epoch of
great significance in our history A
wonderful movement was then going on
from the East into Southern California.
1t found its most potent agents and its
most seductive advocates in the beauti-
ful orange groves of that sunny land.
There were to be seen the pepper, the
pomegranate, the orange, the lemon, the
lime, the date palm, the olive, the fig, the
raisin grape and all its foreign congeners,
not to speak of the almond, the English
and French walnut, the apricot, the nee
tarlne, the prune-not one of all these to
be found growing on the American CONT
nent outside this blessed land, save the
orange, lemon and fig in Florida aud
parts of Louisiana. Little wonder that
Paradise Found burst upon the frozen
regions of the great North and West,
where teeming millions were struggling
4
six months the people must make pro-
vision to feed the mouths of the hungry
for the twelve months of the year where
all nature sleeps and the tiller of the soil
cannot awaken her from November to
May. Little wonder, / say, that they
tioclled into the South, and Los Angeles
county with her 10000 population in
1885 showed l36, GOO in iSss, and San Diego
with her $4,000 in 1885 leaped TO 10000 in
1888.
We i'll the North saw in this triumph
for the State; we rejoiced that the light
had dawned upon the East; and we hailed
the coming OF new, and we hoped q
higher, if not better civilization was
to spread over our fair land.
And, Mr.. President, it is our belief that
if our brethren of the South had exhibited
less sectional interest and more patriotic
devotion to the State, and had withheld
their unjust and untrue representations
Of the great empire north of the Tehac!n-
ipi, and had allowed the overflow and
the dlssatIsfied-a per cent. of whom
always attend these rapid movements of
immigration-if they had allowed even
these to come into the North with minds
unprejudiced-ift they had not lost their
heads in wild speculation, but had devoted
Their. splendid energies to healthy
developement of the State through the
South, as gateway-if this had been
1000, 900 people instead of | ,2O0, 900.
And yet, in 1886, at Sacramento-one
month earlier than such display was, or
is, possible, south of the ,Tehachipi-we
set before the world the finest specimens
in lavish quantity, all the semi-tropical
fruits l have enumerated. The orange,
the lemon, the lime, the olive, gave mute
yet eloquent evidence that there is but
one California, and that the mystical
thermal area Of temperate atmosphere
and sunny skies extend from near Mt.
Shasta's base to the Gulf of California.
The fair at Sacramento had a most salu-
tary effect in it's education of our own
people to the possibilities of our region.
While it was protest against misrepre-
sentation and falsehood, it enlightened
some and confirmed others, and placed
beyond doubt the important fact that cit
rus fruits could be grown for profit in the
great Sacramento and San Joaquin val
leys. With this came the demonstration
also, that our extremes of heat and cold
do not differ materially from those of
Riverside and Los Angeles, or Of Florida
and Italy, where the orange thrives.
Nor was the Sacramento Fair sporadic
effort, barren of practical and permanent
results. The fair of 1887 was Still better,
and then came the Oroville fairs of 1888
and 1889, where the display was lavish
and bewildering. Within radius of tif-
tceu Ililco vi tlc tOWn Vi OrOV1ll0 Ilero
had been planted under the convincing
proofs of 1856, 100000 orange and 1000
lemon trees; and this year that proud
young city has shipped the first carload
of oranges that has left the State.
Each year has brought fresh proofs that
the law of progression is the law of the
north, and this magnificent exhibition
here tonight confirms the high hopes en-
gendered by the splendid display at Oro-
vile in 1889
dare not indulge in invidious COM
PARSONS of our own localities, for 1 see
around me the glowing faces of many
hopeful and aspiring orange colonies: but
/ will defy Los Angeles or Riverside,
Pensacola or Jacksonville, Naples or
Florence to exhibit more beautiful or
more perfect specimens of that noble
frult-the orange-than / see before me
on every hand. And more: challenge
even that people, schooled for many cent
uries to love the beautiful, whose art
sense has attained the highest develop
ment, to produce more truly artistic
effects, by arrangement of this fruit of the
gods, than the Decorative Committee
has accomplished in this hall. Surely,
not only Pomona, but The Graces dwell
among you.
Mr.. President, the work of evolution in
California has about reached its climax as
regards the discovery of highest possible
ties; The work of peopling this goodly
land has just begun.
We have ontgrown our pastoral life; we
have passed the exclusively gold-hunting
period; we have found that our returns
from wheat no longer justify the cost of
production. The period of highest devel-
ment of soil and climate has begun, for
we are now endeavoring to utilize the
gifts of rich soil and an unsurpassed eli
mate with which God has endowed us.
And yet there are many who persist in
wheat-growing and refuse to accept the
evidences of richer returns from any