San Joaquin Valley District Agricultural Society. 621 



will not only drain the land, but open for the entrance of large ships 

 the natural commercial entrepot of this valley. 



fertilization. 



The agricultural chemist tells us that the productive quality of the 

 soil when under cultivation, is constantly diminishing. Land once 

 yielding plentifully, is by the continued cultivation of one exhausting 

 crop, gradually destroyed in its capacity for production, and its fruit- 

 fulness can be recovered only by rotation or fertilizers. The wheat 

 crops of this valley are now all that could be wished for. Year after 

 year the same land yields one crop of this king of products, and often- 

 times a volunteer crop. These, without change, must sooner or later 

 destroy fertility. Would it not be well to have an eye to the future as 

 well as the present, and relieve the labor of the soil by an occasional 

 crop of some other cereal than wheat, or better still, some root crop or 

 a green manure or Summer fallow. And where the show of fertility is 

 apparent, let us supply the needful property, and leave the reviving pro- 

 cess to act upon exhausted nature. But whatever the culture, see that 

 it lacks not water. Sahara, now a plain of sterile sand, with water 

 would produce a thriving crop. 



DIVERSITY OF CROPS. 



Diversity in crops is also needed. Wheat, with a constantly increas- 

 ing demand in China and Japan, as well as Europe, should not be culti- 

 vated to the exclusion of other products. Invite immigration. If 

 immigrants are poor but laborious, under the farm rental system they 

 can supply the demand for wheat raised on virgin soil, instead of that 

 which you would overburden. Your soil is your life. See the miracu- 

 lous tales it bears to the markets of the world. Barley, rye, oats, and 

 corn will never beg for purchasers. The garden products are never 

 drugs. Your wheat and other cereals could be more economically 

 freighted if you supplied from j^our own fields the jute and ramie to sack 

 them. The culture of the sugar beet, which has been so successfully 

 utilized in Sacramento County, can be profitably increased. In the 

 counties south of the Stanislaus, great success has been attained in the 

 culture of cotton. About three thousand acres, planted within our bor- 

 ders, the greater part in this valley, with satisfactory results, show that 

 a little attention will give it an important place among our valuable ex- 

 ports. From the mulberry, upon which the silkworm thrives, its co- 

 coons are spun, but more of them are necessary. In the fragrant orange 

 and lemon groves the busy bee finds the nectar with which his cells are 

 stored. The fruit trees are laden with their various products. These 

 are sought for at remunerative prices in less favored regious; and the 

 demand for them at home for drying and preserving, without an in- 

 crease of production, must soon exceed the supply. From the fading 

 forest conies an appeal for company. Houses must be built, and lumber 

 is required to build them. The vacant soil will graciously afford nutri- 

 tion to the forest trees — the pine, the fir, the cedar, and the redwood — 

 for building; the Australian gum or Eucalyptus for manufacture, and 

 the cork elm for city and valley ornamentation. 



