CHAPTER VII.

AGRICULTURE ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE.

People went to California first in pursuit of gold and a large part of them, up to 1860, were engaged in placer mining. Wheat was imported for food, it is said, as late as 1861. Yet much had already been done in the northern and central parts of the California valley to test the capacities of the soil and fitness of the climate for agricultural purposes. The census of 1850 reported 17,000 bushels of wheat; that of 1860, 5,900,000; and by 1870 there were produced 16,676,000 bushels. Between 1870 and 1880 the annual product perhaps averaged 22,000,000 bushels, sometimes rising above 30,000,000 and sometimes falling below 20,000,000. Irrigation was not much employed in raising this grain, and usually three years out of seven proved much too dry for fair results, especially in the lower Sacramento and most of the San Joaquin valleys. The rains are all in the winter season, the later growth and ripening period being entirely rainless. The quality of wheat grown under such conditions is unusually excellent.

This soil appeared to be particularly suited to this important grain, and the abundance of capital furnished by mining permitted farming on an immense scale where large profits were promised. Soon the central regions of the valley took on the appearance, in the growing season, of a vast sea of wheat. Sometimes many tens of thousands of acres were embraced in a single field, the property of one person. The later indications are, however, that undertakings so large will not, in the long run, be the most profitable. Smaller fields, more carefully cultivated and more or less irrigated, produce larger and more certain profits to labor and capital. It has also

been found that other things may be cultivated with more profit than wheat at its best, so that huge monopolies of land are not likely to be permanent.

California covers a surface of 100.500,000 acres, or 157,000 square miles. Of this the waters-bays, lakes and riverscover 1,531,000 acres. The great central valley is formed by the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the east and the Coast Range on the west, which approach each other at the north and south and enclose a vast elongated basin. The opening of the Golden Gate through the Coast Range admits the waters of the Pacific which spread out within the basin into the very fine Bay of San Francisco. This bay receives the general drainage of the whole valley, is about fifty miles long and five wide, the Golden Gate being a deep passage to the ocean, one mile wide and four long. The valley is about 450 miles in extreme length, with an average width of sixty miles without including the foot-hills and lateral valleys. The Coast Mountains have much less elevation than the Sierra Nevada and permit the higher moisture-bearing clouds to make a vast annual winter deposit of snow on the latter range. In the spring and early summer the snow melts on all sides of the valley and sends down innumerable streams to the lower levels.

This supplies all the conditions of irrigation throughout the valley, and the time is fairly sure to come when a great part of this vast rolling plain will be utilized for agricultural purposes. Already a comprehensive plan has been devised. This contemplated a main canal, fed sufficiently by mountain streams, to be carried around the three sides of the San Joaquin valley, which should be tapped for irrigating the entire surface of the valley within and below its level unless otherwise supplied from local sources. By the help of this, or some other, system the whole region will ultimately become as blooming and boundlessly productive as a garden.

The climate of much of the basin is subtropical. Too far

THE CALIFORNIA VALLEY IS SEMI-TROPICAL.

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south and too well sheltered by high mountains to be much affected by the cool winds that temper most other regions in the same latitude, the growth of vegetation is not suspended in winter. Flowers bloom in the open-air every month in the year. When cultivation is conducted with due care and skill two or more crops may be obtained from the same soil during the year. It is said that Alfalfa, or Chilian clover, which furnishes rich food for almost all kinds of stock, may sometimes be cut from three to five times in the year, often yielding fifteen tons to the acre within the twelve months.

It is an exceptional climate and an exceptional soil. When all their adaptations are fully understood, when irrigation is employed in due measure and at suitable times, the very perfection of husbandry seems attainable in this sheltered and well furnished valley. It is far enough north for the best products of the temperate zone, while local peculiarities and the warm Pacific winds so shield it from extremes of cold that many valuable tropical plants may be cultivated with great success. Thus many vegetable products that elsewhere grow far apart may be found here side by side and furnish an unusual number of alternatives to the cultivator, as also an extent of possible pecuniary result which very few regions in the world can parallel. Oranges, lemons, olives, the most valuable and prolific nut trees, cotton, rice, and other rare products flourish in the neighborhood of the northern apple, pear, peach, plum, cherry, and the best grains, grasses and roots.

Northern California resembles Oregon, being higher in latitude and also in elevation above the sea; but a hundred miles above San Francisco semi-tropical conditions become noticeable. The lower Sacramento valley and much of the San Joaquin form the lowest parts of this great basin and have received the largest quantities of fine rich earth from the surrounding hills and mountains. It has the general character of a vast level, or gracefully undulating plain, of

which 12,000,000 acres, at least, are capable of being made beyond measure productive of the most valuable, and many very rare, fruits and vegetables. It has but two seasons-the wet and dry. In its natural condition during, and for some months after, the wet season it was covered with verdure, flowers and fruits; but, as the hot season advanced and the moisture evaporated, most of the beauty disappeared and the vast plain lay bare, parched and dusty under the burning sun. The well-watered nooks, the uplands and some stretches of forest still preserved herbage for the stock of the mission priests and the Spanish rancheros; but the sheltered valley, especially in the dry years, was an inhospitable desert.

This is being gradually changed under cultivation, and especially by irrigation. Yet, scarcely five million acres in the whole State are under the plow, although somewhat more is enclosed, and most of the area serves the purposes of the stock raiser at some season of the year. In time, the large farms will be cut up into many smaller ones, all the arable land will be utilized, groves of nut trees, orchards, vineyards and constantly-growing crops will cover the plain; the climate will be improved, more or less, rapid evaporation will be largely prevented, and more moisture will enter into the production of green foliage, grasses, roots and succulent fruit; cooling summer showers may, perhaps, become frequent and beauty and comfort will be dispersed over the general surface of the most charming large valley in the world.

To reap all the possible advantages nature has here furnished to man, in their fullest measure, will require vast and diligent and wisely-applied labor for generations, perhaps, and immense outlays of capital, if the work be hurried; but there can be no doubt that magnificent results will be ultimately gained. At present, little more than enough has been done to show what future possibilities are. The vast wheat fields annually skim the surface soil of the broad valley plains, during the winter and spring, of the cream of their

THE CHANGES TO BE WROUGHT.

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vegetable wealth, leaving them to lie bare in the hot sun of summer. Under this effort to gain the most comprehensive results with the least labor the production averages less to the acre as the surface salts entering into the growth of wheat are withdrawn. Gradually, irrigated gardens and orchards, fields of vegetables, grasses and grains increase; but they cover, as yet, an inconsiderable part of the surface. Less than half a million acres in all California were irrigated at the beginning of 1880; and less than seven hundred thousand people inhabited its broad surface. Japan has about 80,000 square miles of surface-half as much as California-from which 33,000,000 people are supported. All those parts of California which are fairly watered, or which can be irrigated, have, probably, both in the soil and climate, a much larger capacity for production than the Asiatic island empire.

It seems likely that, in the future, almost all the so-called "deserts" will be reclaimed and made to support a large population. A vast amount of moisture is lodged on the mountains in winter which melts and finds its way into the valleys to be evaporated in the hot air or swallowed by the loose debris of the mountains which covers the lower rocks. There will be less evaporation as cultivation covers larger areas and more moisture will be left on the surface for use. Artesian wells will bring up the subterranean supplies for irrigation; this source of moisture, added to such supplies as are now found in mountain streams and rivers, will render ever larger tracts, now too hot and dry for vegetation, reclaimable.

The parts of California south and southeast of the great valley that furnishes its largest body of available agricultural lands are less favored in the amount of moisture they receive. They form part of, or are closely connected with, the "Colo-. rado Desert," so-called.

The great plain of Los Angeles is separated on the north from the California valley by the union of spurs from the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges. A southern continuation of the