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Show • • 134 NATIONAL WAGON ROAD GUIDE. But as large numbers of animals are every year driven ' to the mountain valleys for summer fattening, stock from the plains should be permitted to stop there also. · For the most part, these valleys are free to the world and clothed with the richest verdure, of indjgenous grasses and clover of two or three varieties ; and here too, your animals, with proper c~re, can roam comparatively free and ~nmolested, till the late autumn snows warn you to descend to the lower valleys. TO TliE MINING IMMIGRANT. You may doubtless have reached California, as near " strapped," as you well can be ; or as ncar as we were, when we reached Car...:on valley, with just ·two dollars and-a-half left us. You are more or less worn down with the fatigue of your journey, and not in a condition to do a full day's labori under an almost vertical sun. You need rest, but if your finances will not adtnit of it, and you n1ust seek employment, or go hungry, or beg, go arnong your friends and acquaintances if you have any; but if none, then among strangers, who will soon. become your friends if you are deserving. • • Don't expect large wages at first ; your 1nexper1ence if nothing more does not entitle you to it, and it is un-reasonable to exp' ect it. Work for your board and ~uc h additional wages as your employers can afford to give you, and continue on for weeks even, for though not gaining much in cash, you are every day learning some- NATIONAL WAGON ROAD GUIDE. 135 . thing, gaining experience, and with proper observation, you will have acquired b.efore the end of three months, thai which will be worth more to you, than mere wages for a few months, without such knowledge. And note this, that you are now in the land of temptation, as well as gold; that loafcrdom here has its countless votaries ; the gambling devotee will doubtless ape the friend, so long as you have money; but from the first you can safely cut his acquaintance. Be industrious, prudent, moral and temperate, and with ordinary good health, a bright future of prosperity a"·aits you ; for TI-IE MINES ARE NO'r WORI{ED OU T . • When the mining of '49, '50 and '51, confined as it was, in a great degree to the naturally water ed gulches and ravines, had taken from such localities the richest of their deposits, it was supposed that successful, profit- , able mining in California must soon be on the wane, and ther~fore the present too late .to accumulate a fortune by gold seeking. And this might, to some extent, have been the fact, had not a plan for supplying vast districts of country artificially with water for gold washing, been very generally adopted. By a system of canals and and ditches conveying the waters of the mountain streams to levels far above their natural channels, immense tracts of highly auriferous country are year by year made available for profitable mining; and these facilities are constantly being increased, so that the net product of the n1ines of California is annually increasing . |