STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE.

WOOL GROWING IN CALIFORNIA.

IN October last the wool growers association of California, had their anual meeting, and the directors in their report give us some information of general interest. It will be remembered that during the winter of 1861–62, the entire coast of California was visited by a succession of storms of unparalleled severity; all of the valley lands were flooded for weeks, and the uplands in many localities were covered for several days at a time with snow. The result of these storms and floods was, as the directors tell us, an immense destruction of sheep and lambs in all parts of the State. These losses were less by drowning in the flood-though entire flocks were thus swept away-than by exposure to the protracted storm and insufficient food. In some localities the sheep thus weakened and prostrated were attacked by a species of rot, and flocks that might otherwise have survived the winter were decimated or destroyed.

The directors say that they have made considerable effort to get an absolute inventory of these losses, and have reports from three hundred and sixty nine farms-ninety-two received by letters, two hundred and seventyseven obtained by personal visit. The aggregate loss obtained from these 369 farms is, of old sheep, 122,100; lambs, 105,189-total, 229,289, and this comprises less than one-third of the sheep farms of the State, while many of the reports given in were known to be largely under the actual loss. If these estimates are correct, we may conclude that there was a total loss in the State of about 700,000 sheep and lambs.

The receipts of wool at San Francisco since January 1st
have been 22,408 bales, averaging 205 pounds ..
The shipments for the same period have been 16,075 bales,
averaging 245 pounds....

4,593,640

3,938,375

Total receipts for the year ...

Deduct for fall clip of 1861, shipped from San
Francisco from January 1st to April 1st. . . . .
For wool received from Oregon and other places

Total product of California for 1862

The average annual increase of the wool clip for four or five years previous was nearly forty-six per cent. Had there been, therefore, the same increase the past year, the amount produced would have reached 6,440,000 pounds instead of 5,119,640. This deficit the directors of the association explain by the fact of the very large loss of stock caused by the storms and floods above refered to.

5,593,640

324,000

150,000

494,000

5,119,640 4,600,000

MERCANTILE MISCELLANIES.

A NEW YORK MERCHANT-AN HONEST MAN.

Ir is refreshing to meet an honest man. The following from the Evening Post would indicate that there is one alive even now. God, bless him!

About thirty years ago a very respectable firm doing business in Pearlstreet was compelled under then existing circumstances to suspend payment; they paid a respectable dividend, and the creditors were satisfied that they were honest, although unfortunate, and balanced their books by profit and loss. Yesterday I received the following note:

New York, December 23, 1862. On looking over my accounts I find a balance of your account not paid. For it I inclose a check for one hundred and forty-one dollars ($141,) which is in full. Please say if it reaches you.

Yours, respectfully,

*

I called to assure the gentleman that I had received the check, when I learned that this was among the last of his payments. He informed me that he adopted the plan of paying the largest assessments first, as the creditors in such cases had been put to the greatest inconvenience. There was one house in Boston to which he owed a considerable amount, which had also failed, and a partner in which had subsequently died, leaving a widow and a number of children in a destitute condition. His remembrance of them was truly "Feeding the widow and the fatherless."

It is very refreshing to have occasionally a bright spot shining in our pathway through this dark and degenerate age, where self seems to rule triumphant.

When I took him by the hand and congratulated him on his high and honorable conduct, I felt a particularly and happy influence, knowing I had an honest man by the hand, which is the "noblest work of God." I hope this example will induce others to do likewise.

FEDERAL FINANCES EXAMINED.

The article in our last number entitled "Federal Finances Examined" appears to have elicited unusual and very favorable notice. From the following, however, which we find in the Utica Morning Herald, it will be seen that one person at least does not like it.

"HUNT's for this month presents an unusually strong array of able articles on commercial and financial topics, and comes fully up to the high standard of the times of FREEMAN HUNT's editorship. An excellent contribution on 'The Advance Value of Gold,' is contributed by A. B. JOHNSON of this city. We regret to notice the prominence given to a most unjust partizan assault on the Secretary of the Treasury, in an article entitled Federal Finances Examined.' It bears unmistakable traces of the pen of the author of 'Southern Wealth and Northern Profits,' a notorious secesh missile issued just on the eve of the rebellion, and largely quoted through the South as justifying secession. The commercial and financial summary prepared monthly under the caption Commercial Chronicle and Review,' carries the features of the same author and loses much of its value from its

systematic perversion of facts to suit rebel politics. With these exceptions the Magazine continues to merit the high reputation it has always enjoyed."

66

The Magazine is, and always has been, even when the sentiments are not endorsed by the editor, open to the discussion of all questions, particularly those which, like the federal finances, affect every individual in the country. The Herald alleges that the article contains an unjust partisan assault upon Mr. CHASE." This we have failed to discover. If the Herald can justify its allegation we should be pleased to hear from it. It is very easy to denounce matter as a "perversion of facts." Applied generally the phrase has no meaning; to point out and specify may lead to correction and justify the truth of history.

The Herald is also mistaken in relation to what it calls a "secesh missile." That work, if we remember, was published more than a year before the Presidential election, and was subsequenly, when secession was determined on, repudiated at the South as the strongest Union document which had been published. Its dissemination in the North was dreaded as likely to defeat the aims of those who were determined on war.

OUR MINERAL RESOURCES.

The Secretary of the Interior, in his report referring to the immense development that has taken place in the mineral resources of the country, says, that after extensive inquiry from all available sources of information, the production of gold during the present year from the auriferous region which embraces Dacotah, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon, and Washington, may be set down at $100,000,000. If an amount of labor relatively equal to that expended in California had been applied to the gold fields already known to exist outside that State, it is believed that the production of this year, including that of California, would have exceeded $400,000,000. The Secretary thinks that these vast mines of wealth may be made available to aid in liquidating our national debt. Of the several modes suggested for making these lands productive to the government he specifies three, viz.: The granting of leases by the government, the collection of a certain portion of the proceeds of the mines, and the absolute sale of the land in small lots. It has been estimated, he says, that at least $500,000,000 could be realized by the sale of the lands in one acre lots, after grauting to those who are now engaged in mining a clear title, without cost, to the lands they occupy. The subject is one of transcendant importance, in view of the enormous increase that is daily being made to the public burdens, and should at once receive the attention of Congress.

The report suggests the necessity of immediate legislation in connection with another class of mineral riches to be found in the public domain -namely, the extensive coal fields known as the Mount Diablo Mines, on the Joaquin River, within forty miles of San Francisco. It shows that our steamers on the Pacific, which are now furnished with coal from Pennsylvania at twenty dollars a ton, can be readily supplied from these mines at twelve. It also recommends that that portion of the public lands of Texas, amounting to one hundred millions of acres, which remains unsold, and which, the Secretary says, owing to the treason of its people, is properly subject to confiscation, shall be declared forfeited to the United States, and placed under the operation of the Homestead law.

THE BOOK TRADE.

Manual of Geology; Treating of the Principles of the Science with Special Reference to American Geological History. By JAMES D. DANA, M. A., L.L.D. SILLIMAN, Professor of Geology and Natural History in Yale College, Author of a "System of Mineralogy," of "Reports of WILKES'S Exploring Expedition on Geology, on Zoophytes, on Crustacea," &c. Illustrated by a Chart of the World, and over One Thousand Figures, mostly from American Sources. Philadelphia: THEODore Bliss & Co. London: TRUBNER & Co., 1863.

Professor DANA's book comes to us in beautiful shape from the press of THEODORE BLISS & CO., of Philadelphia; the paper is excellent, the type clear, the binding extremely tasteful-a noble work, worthily presented.

The scientific world at home and abroad, has been waiting and watching long for the present volume. There have been State reports, and partial geological accounts, but nothing that could begin to fill the place of a full and complete American Geological History. The arrangement of the Manual is admirable, and strictly original; the convenience of the ordinary reader has been consulted by putting the more general and popular information in large type, while many additional details for the closer student are printed in finer text. There is beside, an invaluable synopsis of the whole in the appendix, to be used by teachers and scholars in a short course of instruction, or more generally, as a compendium for reference.

Among the minor benefits which the volume will confer, is that of furnishing a standard nomenclature for the numerous geological collections. Heretofore, every fourth fossil in the country has carried an interrogation mark after its name—painful proof of the undecided condition of that portion of the science, and of the troubled state of the possessor's mind. It is our candid belief, that few of life's burdens weigh so heavily upon the heart of a Geologist, professional or amateur, as the misgiving that he has put the wrong name to his favorite fossil. We foresee great peace and endless employment for all these good people, during the coming winter evenings, in the labor of re-labelling their pets upon a high and unimpeachable authority.

The full value of such a work from such a source is too great, and too strongly felt to require asserting here; it combines the result of years of patient toil, of devoted love for the subject, of profound research, and of indefatigable personal investigation. The immense celebrity which has been won by the Reports on the Exploring Expedition, and the exclusive use of the mineralogy in many of the best Universities in Europe, are merely indications of the stand which the Geology will take among the noted works of the century, and in the estimation of scientific men everywhere; while to those who are in the least familiar with the personal history of the author, the book must have a peculiar and vivid interest. It has been delayed again, and again, and again-by arduous professional duties, by journeyings abroad, by domestic bereavement, by broken health. Through all, and in despite of all, the work has at length been accomplished; so laboriously, so faithfully, and so completely, that it is an achievment worth living for; a monument of patience, of genius, and of learning; a noble service to the present age; a legacy for generations to come.