STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 313 



RESOURCES AND CLIMATE OF SOLANO COUNTY. 



Solano County occupies almost the central portion of the State. It lies 

 between 38° and 38° 30' north latitude, and between 121° 30' and 122° 30' 

 longitude west from Greenwich. 



The boundaries are: Yolo and Napa Counties and the Rio de los Putos 

 on the north; Yolo, and the Sacramento River on the east; Sacramento 

 River, Suisun and San Pablo Bays, and the Straits of Carquinez on the 

 south; and the Suscol Hills and Blue Mountains on the west. 



The county comprises about 576,510 acres, according to the reports of 

 the County Surveyor. The estimates of the swamp and overflowed land 

 varies from 90,000 to 100,000 acres, leaving about 450,000 acres devoted to 

 cereals, fruit, and stock ranges. 



CLIMATE. 



The climate of Solano is a benediction. It is an equable mean between 

 the colder north, and the heat and humidity of the lower south. The 

 summers are long and genial, and the bright, breezy days, and cool, restful 

 nights, are the delight of our people. The rarity, crispness, and tone of 

 the atmosphere; the freedom from malaria-breeding swamps; the peculiar 

 conformation of the country, by which a perfect system of drainage is 

 natural and easy, give the people of this section the highest measure of 

 health and longevity known in California. Epidemic disease, either 

 among men or animals, is rarely known, and the dry, equable climate is 

 almost a certain cure for asthma or other bronchial affections. No pen or 

 pencil can give adequate portraiture to the topographical charms of this 

 region. In fact, the climate of Solano is her one distinguishing feature. 

 It gives her a value that no other portion of the earth's surface can surpass. 

 It makes her agriculture the richest, and in time it will be the most 

 diversified in California. It will some day secure to her orchards a great 

 monopoly of the most valuable horticultural products. It enables her 

 horticulturists to group together the choicest collection and the greatest 

 variety of the fruits of temperate and tropical regions. We have but little 

 fog, no thunder storms, lightning, or tornadoes; no cyclones, no earth- 

 quakes, no blizzards, no sleets, no snow-drifting storms, no scalding heat 

 in summer, or freezing weather in winter. The wet and dry periods come 

 with such regularity that the farmer knows just how to provide for them. 

 He sows his seeds and cultivates his land with the positive assurance that 

 the rain will come to sprout it, and the sun will shine to warm it into life 

 and cause it to grow luxuriantly. When the grain is ripe it can be 

 harvested and left exposed in the open air for a stated period, with the 

 absolute certainty that it is not endangered by any unforeseen inclemency 

 of the weather. And when winter comes, it is only so in name, and called 

 such in order to distinguish different periods of the year. It is not such 

 weather as interrupts farming operations and starves and kills stock. In 

 fact, the year is simply a succession of delightful variations of a deliciously 

 mild and wonderfully invigorating climate. 



Indeed, there is no section of the county that has a distinctive winter in 

 its climate. 



The average summer heat is about 80° Fahrenheit; the average tempera- 

 ture in winter is about 60°. The extreme heat is 110°, and the extreme 

 cold, 20°. Ice rarely forms, and during a period of eighteen years, snow 

 has fallen but twice. It should be borne in mind, however, that with the 



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