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Show 82 IMMIGRANTS' AND SETTLERS' GUIDE This brief glance at the agriculture of California reveals the fact that it has great capacity for stock and fruit production, but a limited one as to the cereals. AGRICULTURAL .AND MINING INTERESTS CONTRASTED. California, from its peculiar geographical situation on the Pacific coast, and the relation which it sustains to the interior mining districts of the Pacific slope, must long continue to be the great source of supply for the rapidly-growing settlements of that vast region. A brief consideration of the relation between the agriculture of California and the mining interests of the Pacific and contiguous inland districts would seem, therefore, to be necessary in this connection. It is not probable that Oregon and Washington will do more than sustain their own development of mineral industry. Dakota, Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico, as has been already shown in previous chapters of this series, possess immense mineral wealth, and are rapidly settling up with a mining population. Essential to a rapid and permanent development of this wealth, and the sustenance of the population necessary to its production, are abundant and cheap agricultural products. Where are these to be obtained ? EXTENT OF THE MINING REGION. Mr. Chase, in his Treasury Report for 1862, thus speaks of the extent of the mining districts: "T~e gold-bearing region of the United States stretches through near eighteen degrees of latitude, from British Columbia on the north to ~exico on the south, and through more than twenty degrees of lon1ptude, from the ~astern declination of the Rocky Mountains to the Pa~tfic Oc~an: It mcludes two States, California and Oregon ; four enttre Tern tones, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, and Dakota. • It forms an area of more than a million of square miles, the whole of which, * Under the recent apportionment of the territorial domain, Colo rado, Idaho, and Montana must be added. TO THE NEW STATES .AND TERRITORIES. 83 . . rtant exceptions, is the property of the with comparatively unim)o . old, but in silver copper, iron, lead, nation. It is rich not on y _In gl Its product 'of gold and silver and many other valuabl~8~;n~~ls~ot probably fall very much, if at adlul rinshgo trht eo cfu $rr1e0n0t, 0y0e0a,0r 00, an' d it must long continue gradually yet , . " rapidly to Increase. . f h re ion described by 1\fr. Chase A great portiOn o t e tf can therefore be said in is yet une~plored, and ~~a 1~ftion to agricultur~; but regard to Its probable f th! Rocky Mountains pomts to the general character o mall amount of level country, the fact t_hat between t~~ ~ature of its climate, adequate its elevatwn, and the~ fi d to sustain those engaged farming lands cannot e oufi w narrow but fertile, dein miniu~ .. Its.valleys aJ:es?ae~ts of Utah are of opimanding Irngatwn. ~ld . a P"eneral development of nion that as soon as t ere-is k oMountains, there must the mineral wealth of t~ee a o~i!ulture of the Mississippi be a dependence ?-pon ~his ~ill also doubtless prove to Valley for supphes. lope of the Rocky Mounbe the case with the eastern s there will always exist a tains; and for the same rea:o~n slope of the mOuntains like dependence by the 'Yes e. on the agriculture of California. EVILS TO BE A VOIDED. . ltural systems of California In the _land a~d a&nc~hich if allowed to continu~, two promment .evils exis!d eventually destroy the agn-must greatly"" ~aken,. t~e State. These are t~e e:chauscultural prod"?ctwn o~ d of a proper distnbutlon of tion of t~e ~oil, andl t ~ neeln regard to the former of ownership In the. an s. . these evils, Mr. Hit tel says . nxious to make aR much money as "' The farmers generally a~ ~ t re welfare of the land. Some o.f possible, without regard to ~dent~ ~f the State, and intend to leave lt them are not permanent resl : . umber of dollars together; others as soon as they can get. a cer atn h~ch is in dispute, and, ~s they feel aurnec efratramini nga bolauntd .l ttsh eo wtintleer s~ ~Ip ,~ hey are indifferent as to Its exhaus |