STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 217 



one thousand bushels. The land was ploughed late in the spring of eigh- 

 teen hundred and sixty-three, very dee]), and again in the fall or winter. 

 The grain was then sown on it, and ploughed in, and harrowed down 

 level. There was no other grain raised anywhere near this, on account 

 of the drought. Though several pieces were sown in the ordinary way 

 — that is, by ploughing and sowing in the winter — in the immediate 

 neighborhood of this piece, yet they produced nothing. The land on 

 which this grain was raised is adobe or clay soil. Another piece of three 

 acres near me, of similar soil, was ploughed in the spring of eighteen 

 hundred and sixty-three, late, and harrowed down smooth ; in January, 

 eighteen hundred and sixty-four, was again ploughed, and the grain har- 

 rowed in. This was Sonora wheat, and will yield thirt} T bushels to the 

 acre. There was not another piece of grain harvested,- this year, within 

 ten miles around it on account of the drought. " 



Mr. J. W. Pirkey, of San Joaquin County, says: 



" My opinion, based' upon actual experience in grain raising in this- 

 county for a number of years, is that double the amount of grain may 

 be produced by summer fallowing the land, than by the usual manner of 

 ploughing and sowing after the rains fall in the winter." 



Mr. J. D. Mason, near lone Valley, Amador County, says : 



" There has never been much ground summer fallowed in this vicinity, 

 so that we have no means of knowing the effect here. A few plough the 

 dryest land in the spring and let it remain, and sow in the fall or first 

 rains. It is the opinion here that if the ground is sown in December it 

 is sufficiently early on most of the upland. Better crops are raised on 

 the bottoms, if sown in February or March, than where sown earlier, as 

 there is less growth of straw and more grain. In regard to the drought 

 this season, (eighteen hundred and sixty-four,) one or two farmers in 

 this vicinity have a thii'd of a crop, the greater portion not over a tenth, 

 and some none at all. I do not think this valley (Jackson Valley) 

 averages more than a tenth of the usual crop of hay and grain." 



Mr. W. E. Morris, Assessor of Sonoma County, says : 



" I have taken promiscuously, from different parts of the county, two 

 thousand acres of wheat, and find the average yield to be about thirty 

 bushels. Six hundred acres of corn, taken promiscuously from the 

 count}', gives thirty-eight bushels per acre. Barley, three hundred 

 acres, gives thirty bushels per acre. Oats, one hundred and twenty-five 

 acres, gives forty-three bushels per acre. The greatest jdeld per acre of 

 wheat, is one hundred acres, fifty bushels per acre; that of corn, sixty 

 bushels. The above is the ordinary way of sowing grain. I know of 

 no land summer fallowed in this county; consequently cannot give you 

 the difference in the two modes of cultivation." 



The above estimate is for eighteen hundred and -sixty-four. Sonoma 

 has suffered veiy little from drought this year. Bains continued tnrough 

 this portion of country as late as June. 



From Santa Clara County no answers have been re r ivcd from any 



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