STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 269 



The southern counties of California are well adapted to the growth of 

 cotton, where irrigation can be had. The growing season is long, dry, 

 and warm, and the gathering maj^ extend to January. South of this, 

 extending from the State of Sinaloa, among the Pima villages of Arizona, 

 and lately among the Mormons, the blessings of irrigation pi-oduce fruits 

 of labor, especially of cotton, apparent to every mind, and we, blessed 

 with far more of that inestimable element than they, should use it to 

 advantage. 



I have found the best cultivation to be to corduroy the ground — that 

 is. to plough the furrows high, like a hog's back, foar and a half feet 

 wide, leaving an irrigating ditcb to facilitate the irrigation; after which 

 the dirt is parti}' turned into the ditch, covering the moisture by running 

 a small plough both waj^s; then a small channel made on the surface of 

 the trench by means of a bull-tongue plough, in which the seed is scat- 

 tered, and covered by the hoe, is the best wa}'. Great care must be 

 taken that the seed is not planted too deep, for if planted deeper than 

 two inches the plant cannot come up — but one inch is the proper depth, 

 and therefore the soil must be well comminuted and in the proper state of 

 moisture to enable the seed to come out vigorousl3^ In order that the 

 seed may not stagnate in the ground, in the absence of abundant rain, 

 the plan is to irrigate and plough in February, corduroj^, irrigate, and 

 plant in the middle of March, which will give the plant ample time to 

 grow and ripen its crop. The land being well and deeply saturated with 

 moisture at the time of planting, one irrigation more will be sufficient 

 to mature the crop unless the land be too porous and sandy; friable soil 

 is good, but tough and sticky lands are unsuitable. The proper distance 

 for any ordinary good soil is four and a half by two feet. 



The cost of planting and cultivating cotton is about the same as corn, 

 only that corn requires about twice as much irrigation as cotton. Ac to 

 expense of picking cotton in California, I have no expei'ience, and it 

 belongs to the second chapter of my experience, to be written after this 

 one. But I believe that the California Indian will do it as cheap and far 

 better than the neo-ro. 



California ought to raise enough cotton to manufacture not alone for 

 all her wants, but sufficient for the Pacific slope ; and the time may arrive 

 when California will rank as a single State the lest cotton growing region 

 of America. I can't see any difficulty in the way; it certainly will pay 

 better than cereals. The price of cotton ought to be a fraction higher 

 in California than in European markets. 



When we look to the fact that the Pacific Mail Steamship Company 

 have obtained the contract for the mail between this country and China 

 and Japan, and that it is but the opening of a traffic between ourselves 

 and six hundred millions of the human race, we must see the importance 

 a successful culture of cotton would be to California. During all of the 

 past war, with the wealth of the European world to buy cotton, it could 

 only afford the coarser fabrics of cotton goods to these nations at froni 

 fifty to seventy-five cents per pound. Six hundred millions of buyers 

 cannot be found in Europe — then why could we not send our manufactured 

 goods to those benighted nations, in MXy to sixty daj^s, raised and made 

 on the Pacific slope, instead of depending as we do for our cotton manu- 

 factures upon the East? 



AVhen the farmer raises the first patch of cotton his seed costs him 

 nothing afterwards. For every four hundred pounds of clean lint he 

 will have one thousand ])Ounds of seed, which is valuable to make oil, and 

 feed to cows and horses. I paid from fifty to seventy-five cents per 



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