STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 211 



the mineral it contained — that ft was worthless for agricultural pur- 

 poses ? Or. is it less strange that we have yet generally failed to adopt , 

 that system of cultivation which is host calculated to insure success. 



We were, agriculturally, like a ship at sea, without compass or chart, 

 and with no land marks to guide our course. A few experiments, how- 

 ever, soon taught us that California was not the desert waste she had at 

 first been taken to be. A few carelessly cultivated fields, sown by 

 chance in favorable seasons, produced astonishing crops of grain. The 

 news of these facts spread throughout the mining regions, and miners, 

 who had left the plough at home, and to whom agricultural pursuits, in 

 memory at least, were more congenial than delving in the bowels of the 

 earth, with an uncertain prospect of securing, in a short time, a suffi- 

 ciency of the precious metals, and partly to escape the rigors of a rainy 

 season in the mountains without house or shelter, hastened to the val-- 

 leys, located ranches, as they were called, after the old Spanish rancheros, 

 or places where the former inhabitants of the country stayed while 

 sojourning and watching their wandering herds. Having thus located, 

 they immediately set to work to break up — or rather scratch up — the 

 virgin soil, preparatory to putting in a crop. Entertaining no thought of 

 becoming permanent residents in the State, and with no idea of ever 

 being able to convert their ranches into valuable farms, these pioneer 

 croppers gave but little heed to the time of putting in the seed, whether 

 in December or March, so that the ground was wet enough to plough ; 

 nor to the manner of cultivation, so that the seed was hid from view, 

 and the job done before the dry season set in. This being accomplished, 

 and there being no desire to make improvements on the ranch, which 

 might be abandoned as soon as the crop was off, a season of leisure and 

 consequent idleness followed. .Reaping time came, and the season hav- 

 ing proved favorable, with it came a bountiful crop and a liberal com- 

 pensation for the labor performed and the means expended. Encour- 

 aged by such chance success; the grain growers of California have been 

 repeating the above described routine of cropping, with an additional 

 season of leisure and idleness between marketing one ci'op and sowing 

 the next. This cropping has generally been done on the same land, 

 without any rest or recuperation, year after year, for the last twelve 

 years, sometimes successful and sometimes unsuccessful, as the seasons 

 have been favorable or unfavorable — that is, as the rain fall has been 

 above an average and continued late in the spring, or until after the 

 sowing was done, or below an average, and fell mostly in the forepart 

 of winter, or before the grain was in the ground. 



And such, though it gives us pain to say it, is to a great extent the 

 method of grain farming at the present time, if indeed the term method. 

 may be applied to a practice in which there is no system or reason. 



Is it any wonder, then, that the grain farmers of California are becom- 

 ing discouraged — that they are beginning to regard their occupation as 

 uncertain and precarious — or, in that expressive California phrase, as 

 "played out?" Such a method of farming is " played out/' and should 

 have been long since. 



But now, while a dry season and a failure of crops to an extent here- 

 tofore unknown in the history of the State is affecting our pockets, and 

 putting many of us to our wits' ends for the means to meet our engage- 

 ments to our fellow men, and our obligations to our Government, in this 

 time of her sorest need, let us pause for a moment and review the situa- 

 tion. Let us appeal to reason, to nature, and to facts, and determine 

 whether we cannot reform the system of grain farming in California, to 



