STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



351 



snow, and the streams are locked in ice, our fields are alive with busy 

 workers. There is no such rainy season here as is known in some other 

 countries. There are no months, or Aveeks even, that the rain falls so as 

 to drive people indoors. A few hours of rain comes, and then is followed 

 by two or three days of warm, balmy, spring-like weather. The weather 

 statistics show that in the year there are more than 200 perfectly clear 

 days, and nearly 300 in which the sun shines portions of the time. 



Professor H. E. Van Deman, of the Pomological Bureau of the Agricult- 

 ural Department at Washington, was one of the visiting horticulturists in 

 Chico, on February first, and he used the following language in an inter- 

 view: 



I did not expect to find so mild a climate so far north; it has been quite a surprise to 

 me. The Napa and Sacramento are the two greatest valleys we have vet seen. From a 



to 

 ipa and Sacramento are the two greatest valleys we have yet seen. From a 

 horticultural point of view, what we were shown at General Indwell's at Chico was the 

 very finest of its kind I have ever seen. The largest fig and cherry trees in the United 

 States are growing there, and General Indwell told me that one cherry tree alone yielded 

 1,750 pounds of fruit in a year. I also saw there a great many thousand peach trees in 

 the nursery. If the horticulturists of California take care of things and goon as they 

 are, there is no reason why they cannot raise one hundred times more fruit than they do 

 now. Practically speaking, fruit growing in this State has only just begun. The facilities 

 are almost limitless. The foothills of the Sierra Nevada Range are well adapted to grow 

 olives, and olive culture could be made most profitable, because we are now importing a 

 great quantity of olive oil. I had heard so much and read so much about California that 

 I had great expectations hefore 1 left Washington — they have been more than fulfilled. 



Chico Temperature and Rainfall. 



The following table shows the average temperature and rainfall by sea- 

 sons, as deduced from fourteen years' observations, along with the highest 

 and lowest temperatures: 



Average winter 



A verage spring 



Average summer 



Average autumn -... 



Average yearly 



Highest temperature 

 Lowest temperature . 



Average monthly rainfall, as deduced from fourteen years of observa- 

 tion: 



Months. 



Inches. 



Month 



Inches. 



January. 

 February 

 March..'. 

 April 



June 



July 



4.23 



3.74 



2.94 



1.58 



.80 



.30 



.04 



August 



September 

 October ... 

 November 

 December 



Seasonal 



.03 



.26 



1.11 



2.19 



3.55 



20.32 



