Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/343

 honest directness of purpose in this new constitution, its effort to simplify legislation and sweep away embarrassments, often maintained much more in the interest of legislator and lawyer than the public good, is well worthy of imitation elsewhere.

Physical and commercial conditions are also changing. Life hereafter will depend less upon spasmodic "finds," and more on the humdrum and legitimate industries. Mining, though the supply of treasure, with improved machinery, still holds out in a uniform way, takes a lesser rank. Agriculture and manufactures come every day more to the front. California produces an annual wheat crop of $50,000,000, a wool crop of $10,000,000, wines to the amount of $4,000,000, and fruits worth as much more, though these last two branches are but in their infancy. Of the greater part of all this San Francisco is the entrepôt.

The smoke of the soft coals of Alaska, Oregon, and Australia too may be allowed to thicken the air to some purpose, since it produces manufactures to the amount of $75,000,000 per annum.