STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 317 



culture of the orange than any other fruit tree. It is quite as much at 

 home as the apricot or the peach, and requires much less attention in the 

 way of pruning." 



But while the winter temperature is perhaps higher here than at any 

 other point in the world in this latitude, the rainfall is heavy. According 

 to the rain tables compiled by A. Montpellier, of the Granger's Bank of 

 San Francisco, and confirmed by the statistics in such matters accumu- 

 lated by the Southern Pacific Company, the rainfall at Vacaville exceeds 

 that of any other agricultural point in the State of California, the average 

 being some 32.50 inches. This heavy rainfall is confined to Vacaville 

 Township, and is nearly double the rainfall at any point in the Sacramento 

 Valley, and nearly three times the average precipitation in either the Santa 

 Clara or San Joaquin Valleys. 



The spring climate of this district is sui generis. Owing to the elevation 

 and the peculiar configuration of the hills, gentle and continuous air cur- 

 rents are produced, which ward off frosts. In consequence of this, vege- 

 tables are planted, fruit trees blossom and leaf out in Vacaville Township 

 weeks before the frost will allow any exhibition of vegetable life in closely 

 contiguous localities, or in fact at any point upon the same meridian five 

 hundred miles further south. In consequence the grape grower here is 

 sure of his vintage, and the horticulturist of the earliest harvest of any 

 place in the United States. 



The cherry ripens here as early as the last of March, the apricot by 

 April twentieth, and the peach by the first of May. Here dates are earlier 

 than similar fruits will ripen in the open air at any other place in the 

 United States. 



The early ripening of fruits, which adds so enormously to the wealth of 

 this section, has been traced to different causes, but observers are by no 

 means agreed. Some think our excessively mild winters, and warm 

 springs, and warm air currents, force the vegetation. In the absence of 

 accurate meteorological data, on the other hand, it is contended that Vaca- 

 ville is not to be compared with Sacramento Valley or Los Angeles for high 

 heats in summer, and inferentially in winter. Others contend that the 

 peculiar composition of the soil forces vegetation with abnormal rapidity. 

 Other observers assert that there is some influence forcing vegetation not 

 explained by any known difference either in temperature or the soil of this 

 section, and depending upon the ozone in the atmosphere or upon its pecu- 

 liar electrical conditions. But whatever may be the cause, the interesting 

 fact remains that while the great interior valleys can show everywhere a 

 far higher summer temperature, and hundreds of places in California a 

 higher average temperature, a small section in Vacaville Township is from 

 two weeks to two months ahead of any point from Shasta to San Diego in 

 reaching the fruit and vegetable markets with matured produce. 



The summer climate here is a happy medium between the cold winds of 

 San Francisco and the hot suns of Sacramento. The trade winds, filtered 

 through the canons of the Coast Range, and broken and warmed in their 

 passage, blow nineteen days out of twenty in the summer time, and pro- 

 duce a climate healthful, bracing, and agreeable. When these winds do 

 not blow, and the air currents set from the north, or hot interior, the days 

 are marked as our days of disagreeable high temperature, when the ther- 

 mometer reaches 108° or 110° in the shade. Such times are rare and of 

 short duration. Fogs are of rare occurrence in the winter, and are never 

 known at any other time, the high wall of the Coast Range effectually bar- 

 ring them out, though often for days in succession they roll up from the 

 coast to the very summit, and are there dissolved in the warm air rising up 

 the eastern slope of the range. 



