ciency of bees in increasing fruit production of selfsterile varieties. According to the Census of 1910, California was the first honey and wax-producing state in the Union, with a product of 10,264,716 pounds of honey and 126,445 pounds of beeswax, thrice as large in honey and more than twice as large in beeswax as Texas, next in rank among the states. There is, however, great variation in the annual product owing to seasonal uncertainty of honey flow of the desert flora, as has been suggested. During the last twenty years there has been variation from one to ten million pounds of product. Fortunately the art of beekeeping has mastered expansive and contractive measures and policies to meet such variation and largely to maintain the bees in production commensurate with such quickly alternating extremes.

THE SILK-WORM

The pioneer silk-grower of California was L. Prevost of San Jose who grew his first brood of worms from eggs obtained in France, in 1854, having failed to secure a hatch from two importations of eggs from China. Prevost exhibited cocoons and appeared at many public occasions as the apostle of silk culture as an industry for California. He did a considerable business in mulberry trees and silk-worm eggs and before 1867 silk fabrics were manufactured at a small factory in San Jose; silk-worm eggs were profitably shipped to France in quantity, and in 1867 silk exhibits from California won honors at the Paris Exposi

tion. Meantime silk enterprises had been entered on near Santa Barbara, Sacramento, Grass Valley and other points and large expectations were cherished of profits both from local silk manufacture and from production of eggs for sale in France. The latter expectation was arrested by the Franco-German War of 1870 and finally extinguished by the fact that California eggs were contaminated with the disastrous silk-worm diseases which Europeans were trying to escape. The calculation of profitable production of raw silk also proved illusory because, even with cheap Chinese labor then available, the cost of production was too great and all the earlier efforts at silk-culture were abandoned.

In 1880 agitation was revived on the basis of the suitability of silk-growing for a household industry. With this effort, which included promotive enactment and appropriation by the legislatures of 1883 and 1885, there was wide distribution of mulberry cuttings of several species imported and grown for that purpose, the establishment of an experimental filature and many publications. However, silk-growing was not profitable after the State ceased to buy cocoons at a high price for promotion purposes. It cost too much to hire labor to pick mulberry leaves and to wait on the worms. After State promotion was withdrawn about 1888, effort was continued by individuals and societies but neither popularity nor notable production has been attained, although considerable energy and enthusiasm have been manifested from time to time even to the present. In the line

of manufacturing, more has been achieved as there has been in operation for many years a silk thread mill at Petaluma with a capacity of 60,000 pounds a year. It uses raw silk grown and reeled in China and Japan. Although silk-growing has been practically abandoned, there is still a degree of confidence that silk manufacture from Oriental raw material will ere long be a great industry in California, and promotive effort. in that line continues.

CHAPTER VII

COOPERATIVE ORGANIZATIONS

THE chief difference between American agriculture and that which preceded it in California lies in the fact that the Spaniards had one sublime earthly purpose in their entrance on this territory, to Christianize the pagan aborigines and fit them for civilized use of the vast country of which their ownership was recognized. In the undertaking to keep the land for them and to fit them for development into national existence as a new gem for the crown of Spain, it seemed desirable to keep them free from contact with the outside world. Plans for colonization with white people were urged on the crown but were not approved, either because isolation of the savages with the means of regeneration was held to be essential or because funds were not available to promote colonization. The result was that trade was prohibited except as the mission padres conducted it and intrusion of foreigners was unwelcome, although hospitality to those who did gain access was generous and genuine. During the Mexican régime the earlier conceptions of service to the aborigines were largely abandoned and restrictions on trade and access of foreigners relaxed. However, agriculture had little

definite aggressive purpose and no initiative to serve such a purpose if it had been conceived.

In sharp contrast with this insurmountable barrier to progress was the attitude of the Americans who discerned opportunities for development in everything and advantages in the natural capability and geographical situation of the country. They at once entered on organized efforts for the attainment of a distinctive and diversified agriculture such as a semi-tropical climate and a potential opening in world trade invited. The method which they adopted to attain fully and quickly the results they conceived to be possible and desirable was that of coöperative organization. It is probably true that the farmers of no other American state ever discerned so early in its history the benefits of organization and began so soon to strive for them. They were of course disappointed again and again in the time required for realization, but the effort was never abandoned and conspicuous success came to the second and third generations.

In September 1851, just one year from the birth of the State, a state fair was held in San Francisco. It was not officially arranged for but was the result of spontaneous impulse on the part of the people to bring their products together and to compare their experiences. Products from valleys hundreds of miles apart were displayed, an oration was delivered and prizes were awarded. Other similar gatherings and fairs followed and in response to an appeal to the legislature the California State Agricultural