Industry, honesty and perseverance were my guiding stars to success. I found them in demand everywhere I went. I had never thought of success coming to me from other sources; it never did. After becoming my own boss, which all young men were supposed to be in New Jersey at the age of 21, nothing better presenting itself, I hired to a farmer to work during the summer and fall for nine dollars per month, with board and washing. In the winter, I taught a district school. Thus passed my twenty-second year, as happy a year as has ever fallen to my lot to enjoy. I was just as content working for thirty-five cents per day as I was in after years when my time for overseeing my business netted me seventy-five dollars per day or when my net income exceeded sixty thousand dollars per year....

To show the importance of looking after and husbanding small things, I will relate this fact: In the summer of 1845, I was boarding with my father, and teaching a district school. In his corn field were sharp corners, and crooks in his fence, leaving a few square feet of land, here and there, which he could not cultivate with his teams. He consented that myself and brother might dig it up and plant potatoes in it for ourselves, which work we did mornings and evenings, so as not to interfere with our daily duties. We did not anticipate much of an income from what we were then doing; but it was exercise, and a good lesson for us. It was the first time we had ever attempted to produce wealth from the elements, working under our own dictation. Little did we think that eight years from that time, we would have raised and sold for gold coin over one million dollar's worth of potatoes, in a strange country, three thousand miles away.... The point I wish to make is, we raised some potatoes along our father's fence, dug and buried them to protect them from the winter's frost. They were yet under the frozen ground in January, 1846, when I was ready to start for California. I sold my share of them for five dollars. When I got to New York, I added two dollars to the five and bought a Colt's six-shooter pistol. I was told, "you are going to a country occupied by savage beasts, and still more savage men, so you must go armed to protect yourself...."

....The upper part of [California] was already in possession of the United States forces.... The population of Yerba Buena, (now San Francisco) when we arrived there, was said to be forty; our company of two hundred and sixty-eight made an addition to their number of over six hundred percent. Yerba Buena was no place for an ambitious farmer and as farming was my profession and I had brought some farming tools with me, I was anxious to get to work. So, after about thirty days, Brother James Light and I with our families left to fill a contract made with Dr. John Marsh to put in a field of wheat on shares on his farm which was situated on the lower San Joaquin. We put in forty acres. It grew well the land was good, while the rains were early and abundant that year.

After the wheat was sown, and there being nothing more to be done at the doctor's in March 1847, I moved over to the Mission de San Jose, where I found farming prospects more favorable. In its vicinity, my large farming operations were afterward prosecuted. At the Mission, in March, I plowed and sowed wheat, barley, peas, and potatoes and made a garden planted with different kinds of truck. All of this sowing and planting were of no avail, as the plants were destroyed by grasshoppers an affliction from which my farm never after suffered, although I followed agriculture pursuits in that neighborhood for thirty odd years. Later I planted a small patch of potatoes on what I though suitable soil, about one and a half miles from where I resided. They grew encouragingly the vines being very thrifty. I had no thought of the potatoes being yet on the vines.

At this time I was in a dream, a young cow, standing in my potato patch munching a hill of potatoes which she had evidently pulled up. The roots with potatoes on were hanging down. I was impressed with my dream and hastened in the morning to visit my patch. When I reached it sure enough in the midst of the patch with her face toward me stood the identical cow that I saw in my dream, munching a hill of potatoes. Her standing position, size, color, shape of horns, the green tips in her mouth and roots hanging with white potatoes on them just as I had seen in my dream. I looked upon this dream as providential, since but for the dream, all the potatoes would have disappeared, and I would not have known whether that land would grow potatoes or not. This might have made me unwilling to try again but now I knew and went ahead.

The wheat at the doctor's was harvested and stored in the granary, but when our share was called for, the doctor gravely informed us: "You have no wheat here, your share was destroyed by elk, antelope, and other wild animals, my share alone was harvested." So we got nothing for our labor. Thus ended my first year's farming in California....

Nearby, I bought a piece of land from an Indian, and built a small house upon it, moving into it in the spring of 1848, with a determination of making another farming venture that year. There being no fences nor fence material for miles, I went to the redwoods, twenty-five miles distant for fencing.... [G]old was discovered about this time. The gold fever broke out with epidemic violence, and took nearly all the people (ourselves included) off to the mines. We did not get much gold, but got the ague without much exertion and did considerable shaking. The gold fever having left us, we returned home in the fall and in the healthy coast climate the ague soon left us. We were a happy couple when we got back to the farm, although our garden was destroyed and our hogs had gone wild. Our house was only walls the roof and outer and inner doors were made of rough slabs and were hung with raw-hide hinges. Our windows were muslin and we had "ground for the floor" but it was our mansion. We enjoyed and improved it as time rolled on.

....One dark, blustery rainy night in December a company of Indians (bucks and squaws) were caught in the storm and knocked at out door for shelter. We welcomed them in and let them occupy the outer room. No we did not fear them anymore than so many children. We knew only one of them but the happy indications of the remainder on being admitted convinced us that all was well. We closed but did not fasten the door between us. Having had our experience in the mines we bade them farewell and this ended our second year in California.

My mind turned to the farm, farming was my profession..... and as if the fates had decreed it, farm I must and farm I did. My farm had no wood or timber upon it, fencing could only be obtained at the redwoods twenty five miles distant. My 1847 experience taught me that no success could be obtained without fencing the land, as stock were on the plains by the scores. On account of the water and green feed on and around my farm they made it their feeding ground in the fall of the year. So I prepared the seed, with a determination of fencing and farming all the land that I could, during 1849. On the 10th of March I started for the redwoods to make rails and posts for my prospective fence. I took with me three Indians (the best help I could get) four yoke of oxen, tools and one wagon. Night overtook us and we camped about ten miles from our destination. During the night an unusual and unexpected snow fall occurred, completely covering the hills and the plains. The grass was entirely hidden by the snow and the cattle came out of the hills bellowing through the valley, seeking food. Fortunately after two days the grass began to show on the plain and in a few days we were again able to labor in the hills.

....The Indians suffered considerable, as they were working in the snow with bare feet, but fortunately the sun shone brightly, warming the logs and rails, The Indians would work awhile in the snow and then step quickly upon some stick or log to warm their feet. We continued making trips to the woods at short intervals for fence material until the latter part of the summer when we built the fence. Meanwhile we had plowed, planted and cared for our young crops. In this way we fenced and planted sixteen acres. Potatoes was our principal crop. We had also onions turnips, cabbage, water melons, and musk melons. The crop grew well but one part of the fence was weak. In the fall my farm containing the only green feed in the neighborhood, proved an almost irresistible temptation to the hungry cattle and that fact was a source of many anxious fears on my part, lest my promising crop should be destroyed by them and I have to struggle on another year to make a success of my farming venture. The cattle breaking into my field a few times aroused my combativeness to such a pitch that I abandoned my bed in the house and with blankets and gun spent my nights in the field thus guarding and saving my crop. I did not injure the stock but aimed only to scare them by the report of the gun and sting the worst of them with small shot. I kept up this watchfulness until the late fall rains started green feed, after which the stock scattered and annoyed me no more that year.

The first remuneration from my first three years of farming venture in California was two dollars paid me for water melons in September of this year. Fortunately October and November brought to California a large number of gold hunters coming both by sea and land the appetites of these people seemed to crave nothing so much as vegetables since some of them had and others were rapidly contracting scurvy. They ate raw onions or potatoes with apparently as great relish as if these were nicely flavored apples....

....[A]n early rain sent a flood of water over my field and from a brook near by and continued so long that one half of my potatoes were destroyed before I could secure them, help being so scarce. However what I did gather was a partial compensation for my long struggle besides my success was gratifying and I put that also down in my ledger as a further credit. Thus ends my farming venture of 1849.

In the beginning of January 1850, my brother William came to me by the way of Panama, consuming six months time on the journey. By the blessing of heaven he escaped the cholera on the isthmus his shipmates died by the dozens. He escaped starvation and perhaps a violent death by a fair wind springing up and wafting them safely into Acapulco at the critical moment when the ship's company were about to turn cannibals and cast lots to decide who should be eaten first. He afterwards heard that since he was more fleshy then others of the company they were going to make the lot fall on him.

My brother had also been bred on the farm was young (about twenty-one) ambitious and very industrious. I received him as a partner in my business. We worked and flourished together during the next four years, perhaps as no other farmers ever flourished before in the United States, in so short a time....

Fortune is said to knock at least once at every man's door. We looked upon this time and opportunity as the knocking at out door, she found us home. We opened the door and bade her welcome, thankfully accepting her offer.

We extended our fence inclosing about five hundred acres. Farming what we could we let to two tenants a part of our land to be worked on shares, the teams, seed, and tools being supplied by us.

Our crop this year was comparatively large and the soil being virgin the product was of good quality. We bought out our tenants at harvest time paying them over thirty thousand dollars for their share of the crop.

Our gross sales this year approximated one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.... We established a commission house in San Francisco under the firm name of J. M. Horner & Co., to sell our own and others' produce.... This year we purchased one hundred acres of land at the landing on the Alameda River and laid out the town of Union City upon it. We made extensive preparations for increasing our business in 1851. We bought some excellent farming land near Union City, fenced built upon and farmed it in addition to improving our home farm which was ten miles away.

We bought teams (horses, mules, and oxen which had crossed the plains) imported agriculture implements from the eastern states and iron fence and wire from England for fences. By this means miles of fencing was quickly but not cheaply constructed as each mile cost over one thousand dollars.

We extended our agriculture operations in 1852, by purchasing more farming lands, fencing and placing tenants upon such as we did not wish to use ourselves. Those tenants worked on shares. After planting was over, I sent my brother back to New Jersey on business and he brought back with him my father and mother and all their children and grandchildren, two of my wife's sisters and a brother and some other young people, some twenty two souls.

Flouring mills not being sufficient in California at this time, we built one at Union City....

We equipped and ran a stage line in connection with out steamer.... completing a through passenger line from San Francisco to San Jose. We opened sixteen miles of public roads, mostly through our own land, and fenced the larger part on both sides. These roads have never been changed save to narrow them to sixty-six feet. We had fenced them one hundred feet wide, intending them for shade trees.

Money and other values increased rapidly in our hands and having more confidence in banks of earth than in money banks, we seldom permitted our deposits in the latter to exceed, at any one time, thirty thousand dollars, before we started some enterprise, or invested in real estate. However, the unsettled state of land titles rendered investments in land almost as hazardous as depositing money in commercial banks, as we found to our cost. The United States opposed all land titles, and requested proof of their genuineness to be made before its land commissioners, reserving the right of appeal to its district court, in the event the commissioners decided against the government; and to appeal again to its supreme court, if the district court decided against it. Thus years of costly law suits and in some cases ruin to owners of land titles, intervened before final settlement. We suffered from the law's delay in settling titles, and from squatters keeping us, by force, a goodly portion of our lands, being encouraged to do so by the government withheld final confirmation, the squatter continued to hold possession, however good the title. We suffered more mentally and financially during these years from the above names causes than from all floods and four-legged animals in former years.

When I arrived at the mission, all the mission land outside of the buildings and a small vineyard was believed to belong to the Government and was placed temporarily in the care of a Catholic priest as agent. To him I applied for and did rent, a small piece of land, but when I commenced work upon it I was met by an Indian who claimed the ownership or the right to use that land. Upon inquiry of those supposed to know, I was satisfied he had a right there, but had no papers. So after that, I dealt with him, instead of with the priest. I finally bought his claim for six hundred dollars, and raised my first paying crop upon this land. Before my second crop was harvested, a merchant living near, brought to me a map of this land and what was claimed to be a provisional grant by Mexico to another civilized Indian. This annoyed me, but as there were no records within reach, and rather than risk a law suit, as I had a valuable crop growing upon the land, I acknowledged his claim, and paid him seven thousand dollars for it. I had to borrow the money to do it. This was the first money I had ever borrowed. I returned it in a few days.

The Indian before selling to the merchant had reserved a lifetime right of occupancy, but as he only wished to use a small piece of the land there was no conflict between us. After a few years he wishing to leave, I bought his life-right for six hundred dollars.

While planting our 1850 crop, one Juan B. Alvarado and one Andrew Pico, both ex-governors of California under Mexico sent an agent who presented to me a title or grant from the Mexican government to these gentlemen of the whole ex-mission tract, containing thirty thousand acres including my farm, which I had bought three times already and wanted to sell me the whole. In submitting these papers to lawyers for their examinations, their opinion was that the grant was good. So there was no alternative for us but to leave, rent or buy. After considerable hesitancy on our part enquiry and negotiation, we in connection with George B. Tingly, a lawyer and E.L. Beard, a farmer on this mission land, bought their claim for forty-nine thousand dollars for which we gave our joint notes to be paid at some future time. When the notes matured, neither Mr. Tingly nor Mr. Beard were able to meet their share of these obligations. I reluctantly paid the money. Mr. Tingly deeded to me his share of the property, Mr. Beard offered to deed me his share, but I permitted him to retain it. He afterwards returned to me the money I had advanced for him. Some time after, this grant was confirmed by the United States Land Commission and an appeal taken to the United States District Court. While this title was being adjudicated, the squatters took possession of much of these lands, particularly those inside of our fences, which were not cultivated. We realized nothing from these lands excepting from such parts as we had under cultivation. We had fenced them at great expense and were paying yearly five thousand dollars taxes. Confirmed grants in the lower courts with good fences, did not constitute either ownership or possession according to the squatter's creed of justice and law.

Their creed appeared to be "the good old plan, let those take who have the power, and those keep who can." No squatter would buy, however cheap the land, as long as he could take by force all the well-fenced land he wanted, without cost to him even the taxes on the land he occupied were paid by the owner of the title.

What was further observed, the closer these squatters could get to San Francisco, the better they liked it; and if the land was surveyed and staked into streets, blocks, and lots, the better, as then they could and did sell lots cheap to innocent parties.

We purchased nineteen hundred and fifty acres of a confirmed grant of excellent land bordering on Alameda River near Union City....

The extent of our property in Santa Clara county was valued at nine thousand dollars. This property was received by us to settle a debt.

In San Francisco county, we paid two hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars for five thousand two hundred and fifty acres of land adjoining the city of San Francisco and expended nearly eight thousand dollars upon it in surveys, fences and other improvements. One thousand and fifty acres of these lands we surveyed and staked into streets, blocks, and lots extending the streets of San Francisco over it. It is now and has been for over thirty years a part of that flourishing city. The above includes all our real estate and the price which we paid for it, which was purchased by us in California up to and including 1854. Our personal property consisted of steamer Union costing eighteen thousand dollars, a flouring mill, costing eighty-five thousand dollars, a stage line, warehouses, farm houses, stables, out-houses, thirty miles of fencing, costing nine hundred dollars per mile, farming tools, and livestock of good quality, and sufficient in number to enable us to plant and harvest our large crops in good season.

The position I held in the community at this time made me much sought after as an endorser of notes, a signer of bonds, and a loaner of money to the impecunious. As I had been raised in purely a rural district of New Jersey and was unacquainted even in theory with the "tricks of trade," the unwise course of endorsing notes, or loaning money without adequate security had never entered my head. I loaned and endorsed freely, hoping to do good thereby. I have no recollection of refusing any one asking for an accommodation, or requesting his notes endorsed, up to 1854.

Our worldly prospects at this time were bright and our property was ample to gratify every wish and was yearly increasing. As I nor my brother ever drank strong drinks, smoked, gambled or dissipated in any way, no cloud of doubt ever crossed our mental visions, that our property should not always continue to increase as we attended strictly to business.

Our crops were large this year. We viewed them as ample to pay every endorsement and every obligation we had out, as well as to pay the expense of harvesting and marketing them. Our property was unencumbered, large and our farming in full operation.

These were our possessions and prospects when the first wave of money panic struck California, and swept over America with such disastrous results, from 1853 to 1859.... The breaking up of business, the depreciation of property, the enforced idleness of labor and machinery, and the check to enterprise, all combined to make up a loss impossible to compute, not counting the heartache and mental anguish arising from loss of business and homes.

Men of families, wealth and enterprise, were driven from their homes and reduced to poverty and in consequence, on the Pacific coast, self destruction was resorted to, to end their misery. Some poisoned themselves some shot themselves, some went crazy, all of which was brought on the people by our private currency system.

This loss cannot be measured by dollars and cents, no power but the Supreme can weigh the sufferings of the human heart. Upon the first appearance of panic on the Pacific cost, business began to shrink, property decreased rapidly in value, money withdrew from circulation, depositors withdrew their money from the banks, business failures were frequent, larger interest was exacted for the use of money, more property was demanded as security for a given sum, laborers were turned adrift by the thousands, some becoming tramps; two or more families of the less fortunate were compelled to occupy one house in the towns, which before was hardly thought ample for one, and to get along with scant clothing and still scantier food. At the same time thousands of tons of farm products were never sent to market, for there was no sale; good potatoes were ten cents per bushel, but there were no ten cents. All this happened in the Golden State of California, in 1854, where millions of gold and silver were dug from its mines every month. Most, or all, of it was sent to San Francisco as soon as produced, and tons of it were hoarded in banks, treasury vaults, napkins, old bonnets, and other places, though swift to keep money, after drawing it from the banks. Gold was gloated over and worshiped. A man with a few hundred dollars in gold coin was independent, while the owner of scores of thousands of property was poverty stricken, and permitted it to be sold for taxes, and in some cases never redeemed it. Some with ready money held it for purchasing properties at the depreciated rates for which it was sold by the sheriff, and money could not be borrowed on real estate, however good the title.

Money was plentiful, and perhaps more plentiful than it had been a short time before, but being private money, no power could circulate it, if its owners refused. These are facts forced upon the country by its unwise currency laws.... The large endorsements before referred to, now came on to be paid by us, and as endorsement creditors are exacting, money must be had. Products of the farm yielded no surplus in these panic times from which we could draw. For the first time we commenced mortgaging our property, and at this time money could not be borrowed on our San Francisco real estate.

We did succeed in mortgaging it to C. K. Garrison for $50,000, interest four per cent per month, compounded monthly and payable in advance.... Thus slipped from us the property we had paid $290,000 for. Our $18,000 steamer went to pay a $7,000 endorsement.

In parting with our flouring mill, we did a little better; but the panic continued so long, and was so heavy upon property values, that the purchaser sold it for $5,000. This property had been depreciated in value by the panic, $8,000. The Mission lands that had cost us $70,000, including improvements, went from us for an endorsement debt of $10,000. However, the squatters had done as much as the panic to render this property of little value. Our home farm of one thousand acres, which we had purchased four times, went off for an endorsement of $7,000.

Property was seemingly so valueless, that no one wanted it; it was money, money; and nothing but money was wanted by creditors, but money was not to be had. It had ceased to circulate except to a very limited extent.

Although my endorsements did not exceed $40,000, the high rate of interest and other expenses forced from us over $70,000 before they were fully satisfied, and that money raised by the sacrifice of property sold at one-sixth of what it had been worth the previous four years. If the payment of the endorsements had been demanded before the panic, we could have paid them without embarrassment; in fact, had the panic not come, the endorsed notes would have been paid by their makers.

The above briefly shows how the property was produced, and approximately how it was rendered almost valueless by the panic, that curse to enterprise and industry. We had no fears or thoughts that the laws of our country, which force all business to be done with money, all taxes, tariffs, debts and dues to be paid in money, had not provided amply the money necessary for doing all the business of the country, even should private parties hoard theirs; but by bitter experiences we learned that there was no public money, and the private money had been withdrawn from circulation.

How cruel! Oh! how cruel is our Congress to leave the country subject to the curse of money panics, when, in my opinion, a simple law would prevent them. Let us reflect. We have been writing in review lessons of prosperity and adversity which may be of value for future reference.

Although our labors and struggles above referred to related only to temporal matters, yet spiritual things were not altogether neglected. My brother and I had erected a schoolhouse in a central locality, for accommodating our neighborhood, and hired and paid a teacher. To this school all were welcome. In this house we held church every Sabbath during our prosperous years, and for a long time after....

I never was a lover of money in a miserly sense. I did love to make a success of all business in hand. When I had money, it gave me more satisfaction to assist the elders and others requiring help than to use it for my own personal gratification.

I never mourned over the loss of my property, as many losers did, but endeavored to forget, and go ahead again. I have sorrowed and regretted repeatedly that I did not do my duty with it more completely while I had it; but I must attribute it to ignorance or procrastination, not selfishness....

One other thing I have also regretted. President Brigham Young wrote advising me to be cautious, as reverses frequently visited people doing large business, and suggested that I send up $30,000 to the Trustee-in-trust, as a precautionary measure, that would serve a good purpose as a future help, if misfortune should overtake me. The above may not be the exact language of the President, but it is his meaning, as I understood it. From ignorance, procrastination, or misfortune coming so quickly, or something else, the wise council was not acted upon, my misfortune came suddenly, and as unexpected as thunder from a clear sky. It was from a deficient supply of money- a cause no one dreamed of, or thought possible as four million dollars of gold was known to come into the city every month from the mines alone; but being private money, it could not be circulated; hence, so far as business was concerned, it was dead money.

....Hard times are sure to come, since money panics are some of the fruits of our present money system. Under it, hard times always follow good times. This being true, a worse money panic than the American people have ever suffered may be just ahead, and is feared by some government officials, bankers, and many other business men. It will surely come, if Congress does not administer a timely preventive remedy.

If we are out of debt, and have no bonds or endorsements holding us, hard times may injure our business, but our homes and property will be safe. The loss of my property and business places me financially where I had commenced, eight years before, as nothing of much value was saved from the wreck, except my experience. My prospects were dark, cloudy and discouraging. I gave up my carriage team, my watch from my pocket, and commenced physical labor again to support my family.

At length the panic ceased, and its evil effects wore gradually away from the state. I rented my old homestead, and after a time exchanged it again, this making the fifth time. Part of the purchase money was left as a mortgage, and interest being so high (fifteen per cent) it was never completely paid for.

As afflictions seldom come singly, so it was in my case. Aside from the loss of my property, I was otherwise afflicted. My only daughter (Elizabeth) sickened and died, while my property was being confiscated. I was also personally afflicted. Lock-jaw came upon me with a heavy fever, which lasted a long time. My life was despaired of by my physicians, relatives and friends.

An unexpected favorable change took place. My recovery was slow, and my sickness left me with but little use of my legs; for weeks, I used a crutch when moving around. I stated in the commencement of this narrative that "my star of hope rose early, and had never set beneath the horizon." At this time it nearly went down. I gradually regained my strength, after months of mental and physical suffering, and slowly with it came back my ambition, for all of which I am humbly thankful to my Heavenly Father. Not for these only am I thankful, but as in the case of Job, I have been blessed again with reasonable wealth, and an influence beyond my most ambitious hopes; and last, though not least, have been blessed with more sons and daughters. I have lived longer since my oss and suffering than before those troublesome times.

I was granted a new lease of life by the Great Ones, and for a purpose unknown to me. However, in the absence of any more worthy, visible object, for me to work at for the good of man, outside of other duties, the currency question impressed me as the most important. Many wise and learned men and professional financiers have been working at it to no effect, as witness the panics of 1873 and 1893. God is the "fountain of all intelligence," and uses the "weak things of this world to confound the wise," etc. Since I an one of the weak, I thought he had chosen me for the purpose of showing the weakness of our present money system, and to invent, work out, and make known, a more perfect system for the use of man. My suffering under our present money system, I thought, with the blessing of heaven, would qualify me for the work, considered by many to be impossible. Whether this is a correct surmise, or only a welcome thought, the endeavor to perform it certainly has been a delightful labor. I am happy to say, the work has been done, and my mind rests satisfied with it. If the American people will adopt it, money panics will be impossible. It will effect all that is claimed for it, and no doubt much more not yet seen that practice would reveal.

For many of the evils of our present system, and for the numerous blessings which this new and just system will impart, if adopted, study the book National Finance and Public Money, where the bill of organizing the system, and numerous unanswerable arguments used in support of the system may be found. The difference between our present money system and the new system is, the first is a private money system, and the latter is a public money system.

What is public money? Public money is money created by act of Congress the people's agent. Public money belongs to all the people, and by their agent their government banking department, they must loan it to the administration, to states, to municipalities, etc., upon demand, and to all industries of the country, farmers, manufacturers, merchants, bankers, and to every citizen, upon securities named by Congress.

The congressional enactment of the bill above referred to, would inaugurate public money, and install the people as a whole rich and poor, to be the money power, and prevent all future money panics. I should not have penned this much here about public money, only for the fact that I am writing a small sketch of my life work, and this is a part of it, and I think the most valuable part. It is now over thirty-six years since it was first considered. This invention has been completed a long time. My extensive writings since have been to introduce it to public notice.

I thank my Heavenly Father for placing the thought in my heart of producing a more perfect money system for the good of man. The satisfaction that came to me in working it out, and trying to show the people its many advantages, has been enjoyable. It was impressed upon my mind with a persistence not to be ignored, and I willingly accepted the charge. The people are slow in accepting it; so are they slow in accepting the Gospel. "The weak things of the world shall come forward and break down the mighty and strong ones." Amen.

One of my first ventures after the loss of my property and recovery from my sickness, was building a bridge over the Alameda river under a contract with the county. I saved three hundred dollars by this labor. I contracted to drain a small lake in the neighborhood, got well paid for my labor, as in both cases I did most of it personally. The owners of a piece of land in San Francisco, not having a clear idea as to their title to it, offered us (my brother and myself) a share of what we could get out of it, if we would work it up; we received over three thousand dollars for this labor. About this time, we had an extra dry year in California not enough rain fell to mature a crop, and believing vegetables would be a paying crop in the fall, we looked around for an opportunity of producing one, and finding Alameda River Mill was idle, we rented the use of the water which went to waste in the bay, and some land near by, made our ditches and in June commenced to wet, plow and plant a crop of vegetables mostly potatoes. From this venture we realized seven thousand dollars. So by little we regained our feet; but meeting with losses in other farming ventures from rust, drought, unsalable crops and other causes, our progress was slow, in fact, rather backward, during the last few years that we remained in California....