422 Transactions of the 



ob soil of the one character be accepted as an infallible guide to attain 

 the same results on soil of the other character. 



THE ADOBE BELTS AND LOAM BOTTOMS. 



Illustrations of these characteristics of the adobe soils and the loams 

 are to be seen in the large way in the progress of settlement throughout 

 the San Joaquin and Tulare Plains. With the exception of two consid- 

 erable belts that cross the plains on the east side, the loams are found 

 adjacent to the river courses, usually constituting the " bottoms." These 

 are the older settled lands of that section, occupied before irrigation or 

 even railroads were in prospect. They are the Merced bottom, com- 

 mencing at Snelling, the bottoms of King's .River, the Four Creeks, the 

 Tule Eiver, where the Towns of Kingston, Yisalia, Portersville, etc., 

 have become established. Luxuriant crops of corn and vegetables have 

 been grown on them, besides such wheat and barley as could find a local 

 market. These are the lands upon which the culture of cotton has 

 been successfully inaugurated. At the time they were settled up, occu- 

 pation of the dry plains was not generally thought of. But some six 

 years ago the planting of wheat began in a large way on the plains of 

 Stanislaus County. With the construction of the railroad the farmers 

 pushed into Merced, and later the "Alabama Settlement " was formed 

 in Fresno County. The rainfall throughout this region was but trifling, 

 and yet in parts of it considerable crops were made. The Town of 

 Modesto, in Stanislaus County, and Merced, in Merced County, grew up 

 as the centers of extensive and growing farming communities. The 

 efforts of the farmers at the Alabama Settlement were a failure. Crops 

 on the west side of the San Joaquin have in general been heavier under 

 similar apparent conditions than those on the east side. Looking below 

 the surface of this thing, what do we find? The soil of the west side 

 is in general a compact adobe. A belt of the same soil sweeps across 

 the east side at Modesto, and another at Merced. The soil of the Ala- 

 bama Settlement is loam. The compact, tenacious adobe absorbed the 

 trifling rainfall of that region, refused to give it up either by evapora- 

 tion or percolation, retained sufficient moisture to bring forward and 

 mature crops of wheat, barley, and oats. Local exceptions to this result 

 evince the operation of the same cause. At places the adobe is lighter 

 than in others, owing to admixture of gravel and other elements. On 

 such tracts the past season the crops were almost uniformly light. At 

 the Alabama Settlement we see the rich and deep but lighter loam yield- 

 ing its moisture to the influence of evaporation, and tailing to mature 

 equal crops, while receiving an equal amount of rainfall with the heavy 

 adobes further north. To land of this quality irrigation is essential. 

 Without it the land is nearly valueless. With it there is scarcely an 

 assignable limit to the variety and amount of crops which it will 

 produce. 



SURFACE OF THE PLAINS. 



s 



The San Joaquin and Tulare Plains have an uniform slope from south 

 to north at the rate of one foot to the mile, and from the mountains on 

 either hand towards the line of greatest depression, at the rate of eight 

 feet to the mile. This uniformity of slope is to be understood in a gen- 

 eral sense; when the engineer's level comes to be applied to it in detail 

 important modifications are developed. On the east side of the river 

 an important percentage of the entire surface, especially within twenty 



