The record-union., 1892-03-05

the vast immigration which had its dis
tinctive rise about the rear 1923. The sta
tistics of our material progress have been
used to fortify every theory Of fiscal
policy. Under any fiscal system the
growth we have witnessed would have
taken place. Plenty is a prolific source
of increase of population. Upon the
broad areas of fertile lands lying in the
Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri and Platte
Valleys, the young man just reaching his
majority could enter and own domain
as broad and fertile as that which had
conferred aristocratic distinction upon
the barons and MOBILES of the old world.
lie could become a landed proprietor at
merely nominal rate. The value of the
brooch on lady's bosom would buy a
broader and more fertile area in America
than the great realm of her lord. The
earth being the source of wealth, its own
ership is the guarantee of plenty; and in
the older countries, where all the land
was in private ownership and occupancy,
the privilege Of becoming landed proprie-
tors by being naturalized in the United
States haunted the imaginations of men.
This is evidenced in many ways. Even
the songs in which this great privilege
was celebrated are eloquent with the
hope Of the ownership of the soil. The
breezy verses of the lyric poet, Charles
Mckay, may be used in illustration,
when he taught his countrymen to sing:
To the West, to the West to the land of the
free,
Where the mighty Missouri rolls down to the
Where man is man if he is willing to toll,
And the humblest may gather the fruits OF
the soil.
Where children are blessings, and he who has
A aids to his fortune has riches to boast;
Where the poor may exult, and the aged find
Away, Tar away, to the land of the West.
TO the West, to the West, where the rivers
Run thousands of miles, spreading out as
they go;
Where the green waving forests shall echo our
As wide as old England, and free for us all.
This was a strong appeal to the imagin-
alton of a landless people, and in a
country where the ownership of land was
almost equivalent to patent of nobility.
This opportunity for the young to enter
upon the land and become its owner in
cited to early marriage and conduced
to large families; for among the econo-
mics forced upon an overcrowded people
is the economy ofposteritv. Thus land
where children were indeed blessings and
were in truth an aid to the fortune OF
their parents, population would increase
with great rapidity. To our past land
TKvnn Oft, 70 he. n
progress of the United States in the
century of its national existence.
Whatever interest the membersof this
club may feel in the present notable
tendency to the monopolization of the
soil in all countries, attention will be
fixed with a more absorbing interest on
the things which are transporting imme-
diately under our observation. We may
here witness the processes of evolution
which in few years sent sc. 200 citizens
Of Great Britain, from the agricultural
districts, to the United States chiefly and
to the Colonies in part. During the
short period of this great hegira GOO, O0O
acres of the most fertile land in Great
Britain were seeded to permanent past
ure. Its cultivation toldiversified farming
had employed five times as many farm
laborers as would be required by the new
use of the soil. Hence, twenty out OF
every twenty-five men employed on that
100000 acres found nothing to do.
The skilled and unskilled occupations
Of England are over-crowded. Said a
London clergyman recently, whose life
is spent in labor among the poor: 1.-The
one thing which I and those associated
with me always and at once peremptorily
refuse to do is to try and get men, women
and children work to do. 1 say at once:
1t is impossible. To get you work would
be to deprive some others of work, and
that cannot do" By which he meant to
say that every occupation in London is
full. Something analogous to this has
taken place in our own California, and to
the interesting facts disclosing this condi-
ton beg to invite your attention.
The four principal counties of the Sac
ramento Valley are Yolo, Colusa, Butte
and Tehama. They embrace an area OF
8,547 square miles, or 800, 900 acres. This
area comprises the broad agricultural dis
tricts of the Sacramento Valley. The
other counties within that geographical
designation border upon the bays, and
contain large commercial populations, as,
for instance, Sacramento County itself. l
have therefore left them out of the con
sideration, not because a different ten
dency in the direction of aggregating
land has been there manifested, but be-
cause they do not afford a favorable OBJ
servation as to the effect upon purely
rural community.
In the counties named there were in
1880 seventy-one holders having 5000
acres and upward, and the aggregate oil
these seventy-one holdings was 797, 76l
acres. In 1885 there were eighty-five
holders having 5000 acres and upward
and the aggregate of their holdings was
J, 1S0, asa acres. In 1890 there were one
hundred and six holders having 5000
! acres and upward, and the aggregate was
| ], 479, 104 acres. The increase in the ag-
gregate of the individual holdings of {, OOC
acres and upward was 100000 acres.
Thus there had fallen into this larger
class 100000 additional acres, and the
class itself had increased from seventy
one to one hundred and six.
When the observation is taken by Sc
Letting the fifty largest holders in each of
| the counties similar results are obtained,
the most remarkable relating to Tehama
County. In 1880 the fifty largest holders
in that county held 264, 435 acres. In 1885
they held 546, $50 acres; in 1890 they held
| 6S7, 24S acres. Aggregating the fifty in
each county, that is to say, the two hun
dred largest holders in the four counties,
and the aggregate in 1880 was 1,162, 635
acres; in 1885 it was l,499, 2l7 acres, and in