214 TRANSACTIONS OP THE 



rivers, caused bv the melting of the snows in the mountains. The ad- 

 vantage in spring ploughing consists in getting the grain in earlier than 

 otherwise would be possible.'' 



Thomas S. Chamberlain, an extensive farmer in Placer Count} 7 , and a 

 member of the State Board of Agriculture, says : 



" My experience has proven to me that the difference in yield be- 

 tween summer fallowing and land sown in the ordinary way is fully 

 three eighths in favor of summer fallow; that is to say, where a farmer 

 raised one hundred bushels on land sown in the ordinary way, he would 

 have raised one hundred and thirty-seven and a half bushels if he had 

 summer fallowed." 



He estimates the loss to Placer County by bad cultivation, or by neg- 

 lect to summer fallow the land sown to grain, to have been, in eighteen 

 hundred and sixty-three, as follows : 



Of barley, bushels. 

 Of wheat, bushels . 



Total 



22,430 



32,750 



55,180 



And then says : " The above estimate will hold good for the last two 

 or three years." 



" This year (summer of eighteen hundred and sixty-four) is entirely 

 different from anything we have ever had in this county — caused by 

 the drought. There was about the usual number of acres sown, about 

 one fourth summer fallowed. The summer fallow will } r ield from a 

 fourth to half a crop ; the other will produce from nothing to an 

 eighth." 



J. P. Dameron, of the same county, says : 



" There is a difference, in ordinary seasons, of at least one third in 

 favor of summer fallowed land. This statement is based upon the expe- 

 rience of our best farmers, who have tested the matter. This season 

 has thoroughly tested the question of summer fallowing land for grain. 

 That sown in the ordinary way will not make an average of ten bushels, 

 •while that sown on summer fallowed land will average about twenty. 

 The summer fallow stands the drought, and has matured a full, fine berry, 

 while the other is small and imperfect." 



Mr. John Ramon, of Camptonville, Yuba County, says : 



" As high up as here no grain is raised, except oats for hay — California 

 wild oats. Those sown early in the fall, on summer fallowed land, pro- 

 duce, except when heaved out by heavy frosts, a certain crop, and the 

 farmer can count on as much again as on lands ploughed and sown dur- 

 ing the winter or spring. This mountain land, when favorably situated 

 towards the sun, and not too loose, produces good wheat and barley, 

 but, on account of the rough surface, cannot be cultivated as cheaply aa 



