State Agricultural Society. 251 



rivers, and wherever reclaimed have proved to be the best lands for 

 wheat and other cereals, as well as good meadow and grazing land. 

 When all are reclaimed, as they certainly will be, these strips, averag- 

 ing from three to six miles wide, will be worth from fifty to one hun- 

 dred and fifty dollars per acre, according to locality. 



The elevation back of these swamp lands toward the mountains on 

 either side is generally very gradual, and the country presents the ap- 

 pearance of an immense flat plan, but is really generally composed of 

 from three to four vast shelves, one back of and elevated above the 

 other. These shelves, again, have been brought down from the moun- 

 tains situate back of them, by the waters and glaciers that have been at 

 work through ages of the past, and, like the elevations along the banks 

 of the rivers, are composed of rich and very deep soil, though contain- 

 ing more mineral and less vegetable matter. These elevated shelves, 

 or plains were originally covered throughout the whole length of the 

 State with a most luxuriant growth of wild oats, frequently standing 

 from eight to ten feet high, through which roamed the year round 

 countless herds of wild cattle, in times when cattle were slaughtered in 

 California for their hides and tallow, and when these latter products 

 constituted the chief exports of the coast. They are now covered each 

 year with vast fields of wheat and barley, and dotted over with 

 villages, and farm houses, and farm establishments, and with vineyards 

 and orchards. On these plains mostly have been sown the vast crops 

 of wheat which have won for California the first place among the 

 wheat-producing States of the world, and which annually put from 

 twenty to twenty-five million dollars into the pockets of our farmers. 



Still back of these plains come the rolling or foothill lands, lying at 

 the feet of the mountain ranges which hem in the great inland valley. 

 Here is the natural home of the vine and the fig tree, orange, and the 

 lemon, and all the other kinds of fruit grown in temperate and semi- 

 tropical countries. Here, too, on these rolling hills and intervening 

 valleys, is the best climate and soil for the growth of the mulberry and 

 the culture of silk in the world. Millions of acres of these hills are now 

 occupied as sheep walks and Winter homes for stock cattle and dairies. 

 The soil is new, and as compared with the general characteristics of 

 that of the lower and leveler shelves, less fertile, containing but little 

 vegetable matter, the finer particles having been carried further down 

 the descent by the descending waters. The small valleys along the 

 streams that make out of the mountains through these foothills generally 

 have as fine and rich soil as can be found in the State, and in these small 

 valleys may be found some of the most delightful homes on earth — 

 homes that surpass in beauty and luxuries the descriptions of the first 

 Eden. It is proper here to remark that for the last twenty-five years, 

 since the gold mines of the mountains have been worked, nearly all the 

 water running down from them has carried with it a much larger quan- 

 tity of soil and sediment than before, and has in that many years prob- 

 ably done more in the way of filling up the swamp and overflowed lands 

 than had been done in as many hundred years before the mining com- 

 menced. It is also proper to remark that as the mountains are com- 

 posed of granite, slatestone, limestone, chalk, and various other mineral 

 formations, so the soil made from the decomposition of these minerals is 

 variously composed, according as more or less of these ingredients have 

 entered into its composition. In these foothill regions, therefore, the 

 skilled cultivator of Europe can find whatever soil he desires, and what- 



