370 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



ficient to lessen merely the yield of fruit and not to destroy it. Many times 

 when there are killing frosts in other parts of the State, Placer has escaped. 

 This was shown conclusively on the night of April 25, 1885, when there 

 was a killing frost all over the State. On the spur described, the tenderest 

 plants, such as tomatoes, potatoes, and beans, were untouched. A failure of 

 the fruit crop has never been known in the county. 



CLIMATE. 



There are only two seasons in California, the wet and the dry. The rains 

 begin about the middle of November, and fall at intervals until the middle 

 of April. Work on the farm is begun as soon as the first rains cease, and 

 continues on during the winter. Climate, of course, is modified by loca- 

 tions and aspects, but more by altitude; hence, in winter, a person can pick 

 oranges at any of the towns from Rocklin to Auburn, and in a few hours' 

 travel he may skate or enjoy a sleigh-ride at Dutch Flat or Cisco. The 

 spur upon which the railroad is laid, as far east as Colfax, is blessed with 

 an almost winterless climate. Only when it rains hard a workman wears 

 a coat, and only when it rains is outdoor work interrupted. The immense 

 watershed of the foothills permits no standing water to stagnate and cause 

 malaria. The air, laden with balmy, piney odors, soothes the diseased 

 lungs. The debilitated may find open air exercise nearly every day in the 

 year, thus insuring long life to those thought destined to only a short exist- 

 ence. Asthmatics who have been benefited nowhere else, have found 

 relief in the foothills of Placer, which are above the fogs and enjoy all the 

 summer skies that excel those of famed Italy. 



Average Precipitation in Placer County. 



EL DORADO COUNTY. 



This county is bounded on the west by Sacramento County, in which is 

 located the capital of the State; on the north by Placer County, which 

 carried off the prize for greatest variety and best quality of fruit, at the 

 citrus fair of 1886, held in Sacramento City; on the south by Amador 

 County, which is second to none in California as a permanently prosperous 

 mining county ; on the east by the State of Nevada, in the principal cities 

 of which — Virginia City, Gold Hill, and Carson — the farmers, dairymen, 

 and stock raisers of El Dorado find a convenient and most profitable mar- 

 ket, accessible by fine turnpike roads, for their grain, fruit, dairy products, 

 and live stock, while the supply of the silver mines and the mills of the 

 "Comstock Lode" with wood, timbers, and lumber, furnishes lucrative 

 employment to a large number of men in the inexhaustible forests of El 

 Dorado's higher altitudes. 



