208 TRANSACTIONS OP THE 



THE FERTILE LANDS OF CALIFORNIA. 



By C. H. Street, Esq., Secretary Immigration Association op California. 



The impression prevailed with the early settlers in California that 

 its lands were not adapted to agriculture, and the belief still exists 

 that the greater portion of the State is unfit for cultivation. This 

 impression has been dispelled by actual experiments, which have 

 been confined largely to the best valleys in the State. In other sec- 

 tions, more remote, the successful experiments of solitary settlers 

 scattered through the small valleys, hills, and mountains, have not 

 become generally known, and these districts, throughout the State, 

 are still believed not to be suitable for farming. 



The information which my position has necessarily enabled me to 

 acquire, during the last two years, has led me to the conclusion that 

 the only wholly non-productive lands in the State are in the Colorado 

 and Mojave Deserts, and in that part lying east of the Sierra Neva- 

 das, extending northerly in spots from the Mojave to^ near the point 

 where the Central Pacific Railroad crosses the State line, and the 

 precipitous and rocky mountains of both the Coast and Sierra Nevada 

 Ranges, and small patches here and there in other parts. 



The fertile lands cover all the remainder of the State. We have 

 classified the entire State as follows, first giving the area as 98,500,000 

 acres. 



The area of lakes, bays, navigable rivers, and lands steep and 

 rocky, or otherwise unproductive, in an agricultural sense, 14,500,000 

 acres. 



The area of lands suitable at present for lumbering and mining, 

 23,000,000 acres. 



The area of land, more or less fertile, 61,000,000 acres; to which may 

 be added 12,000,000 acres of that portion of the timber land which, 

 when cleared, will be available for agriculture; the soil being exceed- 

 ingly rich, moist, and mellow, composed largely of decayed trunks 

 of trees, limbs, leaves, roots, and underbrush, which have been 

 accumulating on the flat places for ages, and will produce almost any 

 crop known in the temperate zones, besides the semi-tropical fruits 

 in places as far north as Shasta County, and often well adapted to 

 stock raising even now. This timber, which is often dense forests, 

 covers the Coast and Sierra Nevada Mountains from the north end 

 of the State to their connection again a few miles north of Los 

 Angeles, and extends on the Coast Range to the south boundary of 

 the State. 



Professor E. W. Hilgard has made such a full and truthful state- 

 ment of a large portion of these lands in his report to the Agricult- 

 ural Department, at Washington, on the soils of California, that I 

 cannot refrain from quoting from it largely, more especially as the 

 number of copies distributed in this State has been very limited. 



