STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 11 



dollars. The north winds of March and April inflicted grnit injury 

 upon the growing wheat in many localities, reducing the yield from 

 thirty to forty per cent, below a full crop. The somewhat unusual 

 occurrence of seeing the wheat appear to ripen twice in the same 

 season was witnessed this year. After harvesting had begun in many 

 cases the apparently dried stalks freshened, and the process of tilling 

 wasresumed. This did not, however, fully compensate the had effects 

 of the north wind. The aggregate yield has far-reaching significance. 

 It establishes the persistency of the wheat-growing capacity of our 

 soil. Many of our friends who farm with the pen rather than the 

 plow, have been warning us that our lands were worn out. In some 

 years past the average yield per acre had fallen so low that many felt 

 a serious discouragement. It was the honest belief of many that the 

 day of large crops had passed for California. The splendid yield of this 

 year proves that the character of the season has almost everything to 

 do with the fluctuations of the yield from year to year. The present 

 season has clearly demonstrated the fact that the fertility of our oldest 

 wheat lands is by no means exhausted. The harvest of this year has 

 furnished countless instances where lands which have been cultivated 

 to wheat for a long series of years returned a crop equal to the yield 

 of virgin soil. In fact, it is the universal opinion of all well-informed 

 men that but for the deleterious effect of the north wind early in the 

 season, the average yield of this year over the entire State would have 

 been equal to the best average ever noted. As it is, however, if we 

 exclude the localities injured by the unfavorable character of the 

 season, the average yield per acre is fully equal to the best average 

 ever attained in any former season. I desire to be understood not as 

 undervaluing the rotation of crops and the many highly valuable 

 suggestions for restoring to the soil its depleted fertility. 



I desire, in this connection, simply to assert what has been fully 

 established by the crop production of last year, to wit: that the wheat 

 lands of California are not depleted, and that in seasons equally favor- 

 able with those of former years, particularly those years which are 

 noted in the agricultural history of the State for the high average 

 yield per acre of their harvests, with a recurrence of the same char- 

 acter of season, we find a recurrence of the same high average yield of 

 wheat per acre. We have set the production of wheat in this State 

 for this year at one million tons, which is equal to thirty-three million 

 bushels, and valued at twenty-five million dollars. In comparison 

 with some other States of the Union, this amount does not appear to 

 be a very large production, but when we come to consider the com- 

 parative agricultural population of these States, the productive capac- 

 ity of our soil and climate is brought into view. The entire population 

 of California is about eight hundred thousand. Of these, one third 

 are engaged in mining, one third more form the metropolitan and 

 manufacturing population of the State, leaving about one third of the 

 entire population engaged in agricultural pursuits, or less than three 

 hundred thousand people. 



The State Board of Agriculture for the State of Illinois reports the 

 wheat product of that State for this year at forty-six million bushels, 

 but the State of Illinois contains about two millions four hundred 

 thousand inhabitants, at least one million five hundred thousand of 

 whom are operative agriculturists — an agricultural population five 

 times that of the State of California. The large yield of the harvest 

 of this year having established the persistence of our wheat-growing 



