The record-union., 1897-06-20


norma superinduces insanity.
The Status of Religious Thought in
California" is from the pen of Horatio
Stebbins, D. D., who has occupied the
pulpit of a large and influential church
IN the city of San Francisco for thirty
two consecutive years.
Attention is called to the article in
this publication entitled IAN Analysis
Of Land Values of California in which
the present status of land holdings and
values is fully discussed.
In addition to these thirty carefully
prepared articles will be found a brief
statement concerning the numerical
strength, the property values, number of
ministers and the number of churches of
the various religious denominations;
also, statistics relating to finance, pro-
duction of precious metals, agriculture,
horticulture, mines and mining, COM
merce, fraternal organizations, social
clubs, Women's clubs and other indus
trial and social features, from which the
inQuiring visitor viii be able to derive
answers to a very broad range OF in
telligent inquiry.
While these articles will answer an
ticipated inquiry, they will not be devoid
Of interest to the people of the State of
California
Notwithstanding the broad field COW
cred, it may not be out of place to re-
mind the intelligent visitor that the
American settlement of California was
induced by an ardent and expectaont
search for gold: that when he measures
the progress California has made in field
culture, he must keep constantly in
mind the fact that its first occupants and
inhabitants had no faith in its agricult-
Gral resources. Men are naturally in
tolerant as to the differences they en-
counter between the countries with
which they are familiar and those they
casually visit. Moreover, men, in seek
ing new homes, seek those where the
industries they have pursued in the old
are the standards of industry in the new.
OF the truth of this every individual has
a witness in his own mind. We are not
attracted to the countries whose objects
of culture are wholly unfamiliar to us.
When an exhibition is spread before
spectator, that portion of it with which
he is familiar and the result of that in
dustry in which he is engaged will be
"
the most familiar and intelligent obser-
walton. The people of the Temperate
Zone, skilled in the field culture possible
in the ATTITUDES of their nativity, find
strangely unfamiliar objects of cultiva-
ton unattractive, when the proposition
to engage in the cultivation of the unfa-
miliar object is under consideration. 1t
is for this reason that men migrate upon
the ATTITUDES of their nativity. They
seek new homes with more favorable
for personal prosperity, but
they do not seek a change of industry,
which involves the abandonment of that
with which they are familiar for the
adoption of that which is new. They feel
a confidence in the skill and judgment
which observation and experience have
ripened in their minds, SO long as the
question of engaging in industries al
ready familiar is presented; but they
naturally lose that confidence when
methods of agriculture and horticulture,
relating to unfamiliar productions, are
a part of the problem involved in the
change of residence.
The agricultural and horticultural
of California were a sealed
State. The seasons for seed time and
harvest were new and strange. The
art of agriculture as it was known and
practiced by themselves and their faith
ers was inapplicable here. This is not
to be wondered at. The time of growth
and verdure, as known to them, was
from the spring month of April to the
October of autumn. Then followed
winter of death to vegetation, a period
of slumber, in which all growth was
bound in icy chains and laid to sleep in
the cradle of winter. To them, spring
with it's seed-time, summer with its
ripening suns. and autumn with its
golden harvests, meant certain specific
months of the calendar. They found
these months of the old calendar the
winter of suspended animation in Cali
fornia. Instead of the June of verdure
and blossoms, they found one of the
russet-brown hills and sun-parched
plains. with all the unmistaka BILE condi-
lions of the aridity of death. But on
the other hand they found a later aut-
umn and a longer winter of verdure.
Finally, the suggestion came that the
old almanac was as inapplicable to the
seasons of California as the old art of
agriculture had proven, Instead of the
winter of former experience, they found
springtime to follow harvest, verdure
TO come with the rains of heaven
growth and vegetation belonging to the
months relegated to the rigid bonds of
winter in the homes they had left.
Slowly the true meaning of the new en-
vironment began to be understood The
new art of agriculture followed the sug-
gestiOn of new vicissitudes in nature,
until to-day the art of horticulture and
agriculture. as practiced in California
is not known elsewhere in the world
and it is to the material and moral re-
suits of this new adaptation of indus
try to a new environment that your at
tention is to be called
The love Of Californians for their
State-which is proverbial-is not de-
void of justification. What other coun-
try presents such inspiration of love
and deVotiOn?. In what other country
is there broader freedom of thought
and action? In what other country
are the alluring prophecies which at
tend young life more certain of fulfill
ment? In what other country do the
higher blessings of peace and plenty
minister to the comforts Of age? Are
there other countries in which honest
industry achieves higher respect. or in
which labor earns a higher need of
profit and honor?
Under our summer suns the fruits of
the tropics ripen, unaccompanied by
the discomforts of the torrid zone. Here
the brown of our summer hills and the
golden stubble of the after harvest are
the only winter we know. Here a
spring-like verdure is the harbnger of