802 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



mutton; which soils and localities are best adapted to fruit growing, and 

 which to pasturage and grain growing; which varieties of fruits are best 

 adapted to the respective localities in which we reside; which varieties are 

 most profitable for market, and which are best for our immediate domestic 

 use. In short, it is to learn all available facts conducive to the improve- 

 ment in the quality and wealth of our agricultural and horticultural prod- 

 ucts, and of our other economical industries. These facts are certainly 

 worthy of our serious consideration, and while we engage in a generous 

 rivalry in the exhibition of our products, let us at the same time make a 

 critical examination of some of the articles here on exhibition, and con- 

 sider, if you please, the lessons which result from these observations. 



FORAGE PLANTS. 



As an example of what the soils of this agricultural district will produce 

 in the line of forage plants, I invite your attention for a moment to the 

 remarkable display of grains and grasses. There are samples of alfalfa 

 and rye grass gathered from fields which yielded from four to five tons of 

 hay to the acre at a single cutting. There are samples of red-top grass 

 which are five feet in height, oats six feet high, timothy five feet high. 

 There are also bundles of red clover, buckwheat, orchard grass, buck-rye, 

 mesquit grass, Hungarian millet, golden millet, Egyptian corn, and Kafir 

 corn, all showing a rank and healthy growth and a luxuriant fruitage of 

 seed. In suitable localities, with irrigation, these plants are made to yield 

 from three to five tons of hay to the acre, producing from three to four crops 

 each season. There are also fine samples of rye, oats, wheat, and sweet 

 corn, all grown without irrigation, on the red hill lands between Grass Val- 

 ley and Nevada City. 



There is in that generous display of forage plants, a visible evidence of 

 the future possibilities of this agricultural district, far more eloquent and 

 convincing than any discourse of words possibly can be. There is the prac- 

 tical demonstration of the fact that those plants can be successfully and 

 profitably grown all along these foothills, thus not only securing abun- 

 dance of feed for dairy cows and other live stock, but also affording a 

 profitable industry, as a good quality of hay always commands in this 

 market from $15 to $20 per ton. 



FRUITS. 



But, while a great variety of forage plants find a congenial home among 

 these foothills, we are able to demonstrate that fruits grow with equal lux- 

 uriance, and that they promise a more profitable yield per acre at far less 

 cost for cultivation and marketing. Experience has demonstrated beyond 

 dispute, that the varieties of fruit adapted to the altitude and climate of 

 this agricultural district attain equal size, acquire a superior flavor, and are 

 possessed of far better keeping and shipping qualities than fruits of like 

 varieties grown at lower altitudes. For these reasons our foothill ' fruits 

 have justly attained a national reputation, and with the improved methods 

 of cold-storage and speedy shipment, are destined to give us the world for 

 a market. As an evidence of the inviting quality of our fruits, we have 

 but to turn our attention to this fine display from Placer County, with its 

 luscious grapes, its fragrant peaches, its prunes, figs, apples, pears, and 

 pomegranates; fruits all fit for the table of a king. In one of the orchards 

 from which this fruit was gathered, are trees which produced an abun- 

 dance of peaches weighing twenty ounces each. From a single tree was 

 shipped two full boxes of selected peaches in which there was not a single 



