166 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



tion. With scarcely an exception in the last sixteen years, as shown 

 by our tables, the ground has received a sufficiency of moisture to ger- 

 minate the seed and bring forward the grain during the earlier rains. 

 At this earlier period the ground is still warm, and the weather is as 

 favorable for the rapid growth of both top and roots of the young grain 

 as in the spring months. With a just regard for these facts, there is no 

 reason why the rains, even when deficient, cannot be made conducive to 

 the interests of the farmer, provided the ground be put, in due season, 

 in a condition most favorable for receiving and retaining moisture. To 

 enforce the cogency of this reasoning, we have only to turn to our statis- 

 tics. In the rain table for Sacramento we find that the mean monthly rain 

 for September, October, and November sums up, in the aggregate, to two 

 inches and six hundred and ninety-five thousandths of an inch — an amount 

 few persons have any definite idea of, and the extent of which would aston- 

 ish any agriculturist who should attempt to distribute the same artificially. 

 Let us see what it is. An English acre consists of six million two hun- 

 dred and seventy-two thousand six hundred and forty square inches, 

 and an inch deep of rain on an acre yields six million two hundred and 

 seventy-two thousand six hundred and forty cubic inches of water, 

 which, at two hundred and seventy-seven thousand two hundred and 

 seventy-four cubic inches to the gallon, makes twenty-two thousand six 

 hundred and twenty-two and five tenths gallons; and as a gallon of dis- 

 tilled water weighs ten pounds, the rainfall on an acre is two hundred 

 and twenty-six thousand two hundred and twenty-five pounds, avoirdu- 

 pois. But two thousand two hundred and fort}' pounds are a ton, and 

 consequently an inch deej) of rain weighs one hundred thousand nine 

 hundred and ninetj'-three tons, or nearly one hundred and one tons per 

 acre. For the one hundredth part of an inch, a ton of water falls per 

 acre. Compared with what nature thus bountifully supplies, irrigation 

 sinks into insignificance. 



THERMOMETRIC MONTHLY MEANS AT SACRAMENTO, WITH THE VARIATIONS 



THEREFROM, DURING TEN YEARS. 



