STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



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miles south of San Luis, near the village and stream Arroyo Grande. The 

 Paso Robles Hot Springs are situated in a pleasant oak grove thirty miles 

 east of San Luis Obispo. 



Average Precipitation in San Luis Obispo County. 



VENTURA COUNTY. 



The surface of the country is much broken, the mountains in the south- 

 eastern part rising to the height of 5,000 and 6,000 feet. The principal 

 rivers are the Santa Clara, which rises in Los Angeles and runs through a 

 broad and fertile valley in Ventura; the Buenaventura, which rises in the 

 San Rafael Mountains and flows through the county seat, the Sespe, Mupa, 

 and San Antonio Creeks. The Sierra de San Fernando stretches across 

 the Los Angeles boundary of Ventura with the Santa Susana Mountains, 

 still more completely shutting off the county of the angels. These mount- 

 ains are not like some California mountains, however — bare, brown peaks — 

 but are covered with excellent feeding grass, on which thousands of sheep 

 and cattle are sustained. 



The climate is the finest to be found anywhere on the face of the globe. 

 Sixty-five miles of seacoast form one boundary of this county, embracing 

 two good roadsteads; yet the inland country is remarkably free from the 

 sweeping gales and chilling winds so common in most of the coast counties. 

 The exemption in favor of Ventura County can be accounted for only upon 

 the hypothesis that the force and rawness of the winds are, to a great extent, 

 broken and tempered by the interposing islands, which lie but a few miles 

 seaward and parallel with the shore. 



Ventura County comprises an area of 1,296,000 acres of admirably diver- 

 sified soil. It is the best watered and timbered county in Southern Califor- 

 nia. 



The county is rapictly gaining in population and wealth, and the area of 

 cultivated land is gradually extending. Only 32,128 centals of wheat were 

 exported in 1880, as against 93,406 centals in 1884. The wheat crop of 

 1886 is not yet reported. There were exported of barley in 1880, 240,816 

 centals, and in 1884, 293,066 centals. Corn grows well in this county, and 

 the yield is frequently enormous. 



