Year: 1860

Rev. T. Starr King in recent letter to the
Boston Transcript furnishes some interesting
statistics of the wealth of this State, with some
original remarks which must be taken with a
grain of allowance for the newness of the writer
to the country:


Nobody dreamed, seven years ago, that the
State could ever raise its own flour aud the
newspapers in 1850 congratulated the emigrants
that the Sandwich Islands were not too far dis
tant to furnish them every summer with the
luxury of fresh potatoes, onions and pumpkins
What will California be when her lands, not one
fortieth of which are yet even scratched, shall
be under wise cultivation when the soil shall
not be skinned but titled, and repenished by the
careful economy which the Greater has made


indispensable to the prosperity OF n State 7 She
can than easily support a population OF twenty
millions. and still supply the world with her
sixty millions in gold dust annually, and perhaps
another sixty in silver bars from the marvellous
veins of Washoe. We are quite indifferent over
this way, assure you to all threats OF u dssolu-
tion of the Union.


Peach trees have advanced in five years from
one hundred and twenty thousand to million
and a half. Pear trees from twenty thousand to
three hundred thousand. Apricots from four
thousand to hundred and fifty thousand. Plums
from ten thousand to one hundred and thirty
thousand. And grape vines have multiplied
themselves from three hundred thousand in 1853,
to nearly. if not quite eight millions today,


or course we must not forget " the cattle on
thousand hills,r in writing OF the agricultural
resources and marvels of this State. When we
learn that more than million dollars worth OF
butter is still imported, and half million dol
lars worth of lard the cattle-igureS look as
founding. There are nearly three hundred
thousand milch cows in the State one to every
two inhabitants.


p,iII 10 lxn
half the California rivers, does 1T lose Nseli IN
the sand and empty nowhere2 Why should fresh
butter to day be sixty-three cents pound, with
a rapid upward tendency? | cannot say me
house keeping partner asks the questions with
peculiar energy But | can only contemplate
the cows with confidence in statistics and mute
wonder at the uncoupling of cause and effect.


The increase of horses, oxen, sweep and swine
in eight years has been enormous. 1t beats the
rapidty of Jobs advance in agricultural wealth
in his latter years. Shall | array all the figures
Rather let me say that have made calculation
of what sort of procession our aggregate live
stock would form. If all the horned cattle young
and old were stretched out in marching array,
allowing ten feet to each, they would reach from
San Francisco across the Serras to st. Louis.
The sheep and swine, six feet each, would stretch
from st. Louis on straight line to New YORK
The horses, of which excellent breeds are last
supersedng the eXecrabe wild and untamable
Spanish beasts, would reach, with the help OF
mules from New York TO Portland and the hens,
with their husbands, eighteen inches allowed to
each, would complete the line across the State Of
Maine the roosters, if they are true Califor'
mans, giving n loud crow in Eastport over the
resources of the State they represent at the
other end of the republic. Aud why shouldn't
they crow? If eight years of such work as has
been done here don't justify the tapping of the
rhetorical wings and the jubilant note in speech,
what is the use of the growing faculty so deeply
implanted in the Anglo American soulY The
glorifcaton is all right, if only the Californian
will remember that the higher and finer products
of civilization are yet to appear in the State,
and are not to be despsed