Washington sentinel., 1900-10-27
IT, 49,, SENTINEL

OF CALIFORNIA. Gntnn"' Ilatin lazi. i.
ness and religious contentment,
plunged suddenly into whirl OF
money getting, with all the attend.
ant unconVentionalities, vices and
opportunities, separated by 1000
miles from the then iarthest west
ern settlements OF the country, and
with no resources other than her
own, the Golden State has had a
long and noteworthy struggle to
build herself up into the full glory
Of Statehood which she now un-
questionably begins to possess.
For more than ten years alter the
first rush OF immigrants, California
did almost nothing but tear the
earth to pieces to find gold. With
I5S, 900 square miles of territory to
wander over, with no use for the
land other than to make it yield
nuggets and dust, the prospectors
went at the work on a scale whose
vastnesS has since stamped itself
on all the doing Of the community,
Inventing hydraulic dredges, they
dug holes in the bank OF streams
and washed away the sides OF
mountains, recklessly and without
regard to the future. Within nine
years from the time Marshall
picked up the first piece Of shining
ore in the tail-race of Suffers mill,
$3.50, 900, 900 had been contributed
to the worlds supply Of gold, and
market values and prices every
where were beginning TO be af-
fected. The sense Of bigness at
home and bigness abroad mingled
itself with the sense OF the ease,
good fellowship and the compare
tive responsibility which charac-
terized the life of the time.
Yet, although such was the great
richness and the breadth of things
when considered in a lump, and
although such was California's In
itial contribution to the worlds
history, the benefit to the individ
ual was slight. With 100, 900 men
in the State, nine-tenths of whom
were engaged in actual mining, it
was estimated that the average re-
muneTation to the miner was oEiY
5000 year-a very meagEe morsel
Of reward for man who had Strug-
gled across the deserts or roughed
Il around the Horn and over the
isthmus in the hope Of becoming
rich. AS the first decade closed,
the miners worked back to the sea.
shore and the cities, leaving the
foothills SCARED with the ruin they
had wrought, yawning with the
evidences Of the power Of their in
ventions and the heedlessness of
their quest for gold. Huge hills
stand to the present day washed
halt away or ripped and followed
10 the depth of hundreds of feet
until their natural shape is as much
distorted as if a volcano or an
earthquake had been at work
amonP them. Men who could not
find work in the placers, or whose
claims petered out so that only
Cinnamon could find profit in
working them, turned to the old
standby OF farming. Here again
the territory to be exploited was
wide and unoccupied. Most OF
the richest land was held ia Span
ish grants Of great acreage, and
the new farmers were brought at
once into the presence OF the idea
of large fields" Instead OF occu-
pying and tilling 40 to 100 acres,
as was done in the Eastern States,
the Calitornians thought them
selves poor when they could not
have above 400 cres. AS lately
as 1870 there were in the State
over 5000 farms OF 1000 acres
each, while the average farm COM
prised over 400 acres. Ranches
of 10, 900 or 900 acres are still
common. Big farms suggested big
implements. California invented
and contributed to the farming
business OF the world the multiple
gang-plough and the combined
harvester and thresher, which sub
sequentlY aided the Dakotas and
other Northwestern States in the
great production Of wheat by
which ST. Paul and Minneapolis,
and afterwards the phenomenal
city Of Duluth, were made thrifty
and notable.
To the amazement ofall who ex-
perimented, or to those who looked
on with the sneer of the cynic
at the experimenters, the farming
proved as fruitful as the mining.
By merely scratching the surface,
the wheat growers obtained a yield
OF seventy to one hundred bushels
to the acre, and at an expense in
cultivation, through the use OF the
gang plough, as light as forty cents
per acre. Vegetables grew the
year round, tat and happy, running
their weight and size to such un-
usual figures as SO lbs. for a cab
bage and 200 lbs. for a squash.
Muscatel produced FIVE to sixteen
tons to the acre. The wool clip
averaged lbs. per animal, against
an average OF 4 lbs. for the United
States. This exceptional agucul-
tural richness was made known
abroad only less rapidly than the
publication oil the States mineral
richness, Thus California began
her farming as she had begun her
mining-In an unusual way, on a
large scale and with a strong pull
on public attention. Ranching,
Including stock raising, became
popular. 1t was taken up as an in