ST A IE A GRICUL TUBAL SOCIETY. 129 



market, and brought the highest price. Now it ranks second or 

 tliird in quality, and tlie fact is' that while we have lost about 50 

 per cent, in jield per acre, we have also lost in quality about 25 per 

 cent. Now it is quite common to attribute these losses to the 

 deterioration in our soil by too constant cropping. While this may 

 be and probably is the principal cause, it is by no means the only 

 one. We have allowed our land to become foul with weeds, and 

 have not been careful enough in cleaning our wheat before putting 

 it upon the market. Buyers, to protect themselves, have been 

 obliged to charge the farmers with the proportion of weed seed esti- 

 mated to be contained in the wheat, but they have also made a 

 deduction in price for the expense of cleaning this seed from 

 the wheat. Another and by no means unimportant mistake we have 

 been making for twenty years past in wheat raising is, that we 

 repeated our seed as well as our crops on the same land. The seed 

 we are using now to a very great extent is the product of the seed we 

 began with a quarter of a century ago. As the soil has grown weak 

 the seed has grow^n weak and impotent, not only because it has been 

 unable to extract the material from the soil to make it strong, but 

 because of the well-known law of nature, in the vegetable as well as 

 in the animal kingdom, that like produces like. A mustang sire will 

 not produce a thoroughbred, nor will wheat seed inferior in the 

 qualities required to make good, strong milling wheat produce good, 

 strong milling wheat, and the oftener wo repeat the crop the greater 

 will be the ratio of deterioration. We have no hesitation in stating 

 that it would be a good paying enterprise for the farmers of Cali- 

 fornia to import their seed at least as often as every two or three years, 

 and to exchange seed with different localities in the State every year. 

 The climate and soil of the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys is 

 quite different from the climate and soil of the coast counties, and a 

 change as between these different localities could be made with but 

 little expense each year, and the gain would be to each individual 

 important, and would add very materially to the quantity and 

 quality of the whole crop. If the defertilization of our soil v/ere the 

 only cause of the decrease and deterioration of the wheat crop of the 

 State, then our virgin soil — or soil bearing its first, second, or third 

 crop of wheat — should make as great a yield of as good wheat as did 

 the virgin soil twenty years ago. Another very important cause of 

 the decreased yield per acre of our wheat lands, and the deterioration 

 of the quality of our wheat, maybe traced to the time and manner in 

 which we harvest our wheat. 



It has been considered one of California's chief advantages as a 

 wheat growing State, that her dry summer climate favored the plan 

 of allowing wheat to remain standing till it had become so ripe and 

 dry that it could be cut with a header and thrashed and sacked 

 immediately without risk of damage from heating and molding. 

 That considerable is gained in the way of economy in the handling 

 of the grain, and in avoiding the handling of the straw, is certain; 

 but it is now worth our while to inquire whether we have.not all the 

 time been losing more in one way than we have been gaining in 

 another. It is well to know that a cargo of our dry wheat, while on 

 the passage from San Francisco to Liverpool, gains largely by the 

 absorption of moisture — neai'ly enough, we believe, to pay the freight. 

 Is it not evident, then, that what the shippers gain bv absorption, the 

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