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Page: of 210
2 JANUARY 4, 1870 GRASS VALLEY UNION
permit your very humble correspondent to not only differ from you on this subject, at least on one point,
but also to make for your consideration a few remarks of his own.
Mining is certainly a very profitable business, that is for people who are lucky enough to own
paying claims or rich ledge; but alas! it is far from being the lot of every miner to “strike it rich,” even in
this rich mining region of ours. I am told that I would pick up a hundred men just a they pass in the street
I would find ninety-nine out of the hundred who have invested relatively a great deal in the mines since
they had the good luck of striking this section of the country, and who, to-day, would be very glad to get
back half of the money so squandered. How many miners, too, have come to wish and long for a nice
little farm, with a happy family and home upon it, in exchange for their lonely and dilapidated log-cabin.
Their strength is gone away, their hairs have become gray, and their hopes have vanished at the hard
work of both body and mind, to gain a fortune in the mines; a fortune never to be had by the mot of them.
These are facts, Mr. Editor.
Then you speak of our mountain soil as being arid and unfavorable to the raising of crops. Let us
see. In the first place, wine raised on one of our arid hills, right on the bank of our romantic Deer creek,
near Nevada [City], that wine has taken the gold medal, or first premium at the Mechanics Fair this
Fall; setting our very hills as the best land in the whole State for producing wine. So for brandy, another
premium being awarded to Mr. Seibert for brandy manufactured from wine raised on our “unfavorable”
soil. Speaking of “bugs,” again, silk raise here has been decided at the State Fair as being the best of the
whole State in quality, strength and fineness of the thread, and Mr. E. Muller was awarded the premium
for it. Oh no! our arid and unfavorable soil is good for nothing! But, in the meantime, we take the first or
second premiums for three agricultural products: silk, wine and brandy, destined to become three of the
most important branches of industry in California.
There is another consideration why we ought, by all means, to encourage those new industries: take
silk culture, for instance. It is the case with all silk-growing countries, made rich and happy by that gentle
and remunerative business by raising silk we can give employment to a large class of our population,
aye, to the most interesting portion of it, our women and children. You speak of building up railroads and
factories, and developing the mines, what has this class, women and children, to do with that? Very little,
if anything. But no, I beg your pardon; an exception must be made in favor of factories, where women
and young girls are employed in large numbers in the manufacture of silk, cotton, flax and other such
goods, raised from the very “weeds and bug” so much slighted by you.
Then what do we care about two or three of our Southern States being able to supply all the world
with silk, cotton or asclepius, if here we can raise it and make money by it?
I say, down with the one product theory. Here is a good illustration of it. Some three months ago
$56,000 worth of butter was shipped from Nebraska for California, half of it for our own consumption,
the other half for exportation to Canton. How blue must our farmers have looked, down the valley, all
along the railroad, at the witnessing of such an event; $56,000 worth of butter from Nebraska passing
before them, while in the meantime they had their grain houses filled up to the top with wheat, a drug this
year and unsalable.
In conclusion, Mr. Editor, I say that people of small means or unacquainted with mining or unable
to do such work, are tight in trying to turn their energy to the development of other industries. As to
mining itself, it does not constitute, by far, the only resource of mining counties; the only one to be
encouraged by our press. So I contend that the introduction and development as such industries as silk
and other like products is beneficial to our very mining center; being the best means to give employment
to a great many of our population of both sexes, besides enriching people inviting money in it, and
helping largely to make the State rich, prosperous and happy. Yours truly,
FELIX GILLET,
NEVADA CITY, Dec. 31, 1869.