California has recently celebrated the semi-centennial of her admission into the Sisterhood of States. The country was discovered by Cabrillo, a Portuguese navigator in the Spanish service, in 1542. Sir Francis Drake arrived later and called it New Albion. Two hundred years afterward the Franciscan fathers planted a mission at San Diego and for over seventy years Spanish power was supreme. In the forties of this century this power had its downfall, and in 1847 the Mexican forces were driven out of the country. A year later gold was discovered, and then began the great rush. In October, 1849, a constitution was framed by a convention and the same year ratified by the people. The state was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850.

The celebration of this event was on the generous scale which is characteristic of the California people. A fund of $50,000 was raised and there were great times all through the state, but mainly in San Francisco, where the Native Sons held splendid functions. Some of them arrived in special trains with their families and friends, and the "Native Sons' Special" from Los Angeles was loaded with flowers, fruits, wines, and hospitality, all of which added to the brilliancy and gayety of the week. To the great ball which was held last Tuesday more than twelve thousand persons were invited, and there were souvenir programmes which will be treasured for generations to come. Judge R. C. Rust, the Grand President of the Order of the Native Sons, was the conspicuous figure of the day. The celebration continued from Friday until the early hours of Wednesday morning. In addition to this, there were sports on land and sea—fleets of expensive yachts, contests for rich prizes, and gorgeous floats, one of which, representing the Mother Chapter of the Native Sons, was drawn by six white horses. For weeks to come this event will be commented upon in the press of the Pacific Coast, and gradually the greatness of it will be appreciated by the Eastern newspapers.

In observing a great event so splendidly California shows her leadership in modern enterprise. Every state has its special eminence, and there are many states which claim to be first. So they are in some totals and in certain directions; but it is not amiss to admit all these claims and then to say that California is the wonder state of the Union.

In the first place, California has a coast-line of more than seven hundred miles—a stretch of ocean front that would reach from Boston to Carolina. It has an average breadth of two hundred miles, which gives it an area of considerably over one hundred million acres, or about the combined extent of all New England, New York, and Pennsylvania. Within these borders there are various kinds of climate, marvelous diversities in soil and products, and conditions that excite interest and wonder. The census of this year shows that the state has increased rapidly in population; that it has taken higher rank in the value of agricultural crops; that it is first in vine culture, and that it has made most astonishing progress in manufactures.

We of the East look upon California as a place where the people live upon the gold produced from its mines. The old impressions of the days of '49 remain. But in the wealth of the modern California gold plays a small part, although since it was discovered, in 1848, the state has yielded more than one and one third billions of it for the world. But in these modern days gold has to take a back seat. It is true that the state furnishes about twelve million dollars worth of it a year, but even hay exceeds it by ten million dollars, and agriculture in general pays nearly five dollars where it pays one. When we come to manufactures, we find that gold is almost a bagatelle compared to their figures, and it was fitting that in the semi-centennial of the state one of the features of the week should have been the launching of the battleship Wyoming from the same yards that built the Oregon and Olympia.

The visitors who crowded the San Francisco hotels were told that the harbor—which is one of the most beautiful in the world—was already congested by its commerce. Over a hundred ships a week leave or arrive at San Francisco. The other day there was launched in Philadelphia a 9,000-ton ship for plying between San Francisco and Australia and the other Eastern ports. We have before us the latest commercial paper of San Francisco and it gives a list of exports on ships that sailed during the week. It contains over one hundred and fifty items, naming almost every article, from lead to live stock, and with rather large figures of the various forms of alcoholic drinks. To China, for instance, thirty-six different kinds of goods were exported, including beans, flour, beer, groceries, lard, wine, sauerkraut, and pianos, while to Japan were sent agricultural implements, canned goods, flour, printing materials, paper, and whiskey. In addition to these countries, goods were shipped to the following places: Singapore, Bombay, Sourabaya, Manila (the invoice included five typewriters), Calcutta, Rangoon, Bangkok, Corea, Vladivostok, Samarang, Sydney, Callao, and numerous other unfamiliar or distant places, including South American ports. In passing, it is interesting to note that to nearly all these places American canned goods and American liquors formed a large portion of the cargoes. This does not give a complete idea of the great commerce of the Pacific Coast. There are large lumber fleets. Some of the biggest sailing vessels of the world ply between San Francisco and other ports. The steamships are enormous carriers, and still larger ones are being built. Only the other day wheat was shipped to South America, and during one month of this summer nearly one hundred thousand barrels of flour were sent to Japan, Asia, and the Philippines. Taking all the figures together, we simply begin to realize not only the greatness, but the increasing greatness, of the Pacific slope.

Within the half century the value of California farms has increased nearly a billion dollars. Between 1880 and 1890 alone the percentage of increase was one hundred and sixty-six per cent. Since then it has continued. All the gold fields, all the silver mines, and all the rest of the wealth put together do not equal the riches of the farming lands.

And yet, great as this may seem, it is only the beginning of a development that may add another billion within the space of a generation. In 1897 and 1898 there was a great drought in California. According to the President of the Business Association of San Francisco, the loss which it entailed was at least forty million dollars. "At the same time," he said, "there went to waste in this state sufficient water to irrigate every acre of this vast commonwealth."

Here we come to the wonderful story of irrigation in California. Already thirty million dollars has been expended in saving the water and carrying it to the arid areas, in order to force them into fertility. The results have been extraordinary. In Southern California, where deserts formerly rested beneath the sun and resisted all the efforts of man, are fragrant groves of oranges and other citrus fruits, with some of the most beautiful homes in any part of the world. It has all been brought about by irrigation, giving to the soil the moisture that it needed.

An instance of this is found at Riverside, and we quote from a recent volume by Mr. William E. Smythe, who was one of the officers of the National Irrigation Congress, and who, in writing upon "The Conquest of Arid America," cites this instance: "In the experience of Riverside we may see the commercial romance of irrigation in its most striking form. An original sheep pasture assessed at seventy-five cents an acre sold readily at twenty-five dollars an acre when irrigation facilities had been supplied. While this represented a handsome profit to the original investors, it was extremely moderate compared to the returns which the second purchaser realized. A few years later the improved lands sold for prices ranging from three hundred to five hundred dollars per acre. The improved orange orchards which had been evolved from the sheep pasture were valued and actually sold at from one to two thousand dollars per acre. There have been years when the best of them earned a profit of fifty per cent on the higher figure."

It need only be added that from these lands, which were formerly arid, four thousand carloads of oranges are shipped every year, realizing for their growers a million and a half dollars.

This is the evolution or the revolution which has been going on and which is going on in the great stretches of Lower California. Not in the whole world are there such records of change and growth, and it is to be doubted if anywhere on earth better, brighter, or more lovable people could be found, for, with all their increase in material things, they have maintained the graces of the best social advancement.

It stands to reason that a people who have shown such wonderful progress and such high intelligence in material things should not lag behind in education. Of all the Native Sons who took part in the great celebration this week, every one could read and write, and most of them had a college education. In its higher facilities California is equal to the best. It is one of the states in which the school buildings are prominent for their size and their excellence, and over each one of them the Stars and Stripes are hoisted every school day.

Nearly all the children attend school. Outside of the foreign population there is practically no illiteracy in the state. So well has the system been perfected that the student ascends on easy steps to university life; and when he reaches that stage of his career he has two of the very best institutions in the world to select from—either the University of California, which has come into recent affluence through the munificence of Mrs. Hearst, or the Leland Stanford Jr. University, which, through the generosity of another California woman, Mrs. Stanford, is the richest educational institution in the world.

The Stanford University has twelve hundred students, and the University of California has over twenty-five hundred, and in each case the number is increasing. Indeed, to such a high standard have they been brought that both of them have students from the far East, while in completeness of their buildings and the ability of their faculties they stand equal to the best in the United States.

In addition to all this are numerous excellent schools, including thirteen other colleges, a school for engineering, four theological schools, three schools of law, one of medicine, a scientific institution, and ten excellent normal schools and departments.

Naturally, where the women have been so generous toward education, women have secured larger rights in educational advantages, and in no state are the privileges so equal as in California. There ability is the test, without regard to sex, and thus we have it that the modern California woman is one of the best products of the century, one of the noblest ideals in a country which has produced the best of the womankind of the world.

In the same book from which we have quoted, Mr. Smythe says that, while California has a population of only about a million and a quarter, it has a territory nearly as large as that of France, and he adds: "It is inferior to France neither in climate, soil, natural resources, nor seacoast, and its capacity for sustaining a dense population is fully as great as that of the European republic. The latter supports more than thirty-eight millions."

In these tremendous possibilities is to be seen the future of California more clearly than any language could express.

Already she has practically everything for the support of a great empire, and she is certainly adding the fruits, the flowers, and the cereals of every part of the world. For instance, as this is being read, the first crop of Smyrna figs ever grown on the Western Hemisphere is ripening in California.

In the recent census race San Francisco boasted that it was the only city that underestimated its population. In ten years it gained nearly forty-four thousand, and never was its growth so rapid and so substantial as at present. The exciting events in the far East, the increase of American interests in the Pacific, and all the demands of the new trade magnify the importance of California's largest seaport. Great as the mining interests and the agricultural possessions of the state are, its commerce is sure to become a larger factor in the trade of the world, and it will be remembered in the future that, of all countries and states on earth, California was first to establish a College of Commerce, which is now in successful operation in the University of California.—The Saturday Evening Post.

Copyrighted, 1900, by Mary Baker G. Eddy.