State Agricultural Society. 211 



sive in area and rich in the earthy salts of any we have, is so subject 

 to drought as to make farming exceedingly hazardous. It is time tlie 

 great rivers penetrating it, which run at full banks during the season 

 their waters are needed by the agriculturist, should be utilized. Nothing 

 gives me such buoyant hopes for the future of this great section as the 

 work now going on for the distribution of the waters of these rivers 

 over the diy but rich plains, for they contain an inexhaustible source of 

 wealth to the farmer, which cannot be estimated, but which far exceeds 

 the value of the golden sands that once lined their banks. The San 

 Joaquin and Tulare Valley, for it is one valle}*, eovers an area of more 

 than one third the size of the State of New York. But unlike New 

 York, there is necessarily no waste land on the whole of it, while the 

 average quality of its soil, to say nothing of its favorable' climate, is 

 equal to the very best river bottoms in that State. It is no exaggeration 

 to say, therefore, that this valley, irrigated, as it may be, by the flowing 

 streams nature has provided, is capable of producing a larger agricul- 

 tural product than the entire State of New York, and of far greater 

 value, because of the superior quality and greater variety of its produc- 

 tions. Among the productions of this great district of country, which 

 may be marketed in the future in almost limitless quantity, are wines, 

 brandies, cotton, and beet sugar. Americans have had little experience 

 in irrigation, and naturally ask what will be the effect of it upon the 

 soil. The answer is, there is no soil needing it which will not be 

 improved by it, if properly applied, and this answer embraces the expe- 

 rience of the world up to the present moment. When should it be 

 applied? For cei'eals, and in fact most all annuals, from October to 

 May. If applied later, unless there is a growth of trees, alfalfa, or some 

 other crop on the ground to shade it, it would undoubtedly be disadvan- 

 tageous to light clay loams and kindred soils, causing them to become 

 compact and hard. There is no farming land in this State which will 

 not produce a full crop in the dryest season, if once thoroughly satu- 

 rated by irrigation, in October, November, or December. From that 

 time on the rainfall will always be sufficient to supply surface moisture, 

 until the sun reaches altitude enough to draw up the supply held below 

 the surface by capillary attraction. For the truth of this assertion, 

 reference is made to a farmer in San Joaquin who flooded a part of his 

 lands in the Winter of eighteen hundred and seventy, harvesting there- 

 from a full crop that year, and another in eighteen hundred and seventy- 

 one, from the unexhausted moisture from the irrigation of the year 

 before, while his crops on adjoining land entirely failed. 



Among the first of new enterprises should be classed that of making 

 sugar from beets. One company engaged in this business, at least, has 

 met with very satisfactory success. I refer to the California Beet Sugar 

 Company, whose works are located at Alvarado, in the County of Ala- 

 meda. This company has in more than five hundred acres to beets, and 

 notwithstanding the dry season, will make one and one quarter million 

 pounds of sugar, worth in the San Francisco market not less than one 

 hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It will be seen, therefore, that the 

 product even in this worst of seasons we have ever known, will reach 

 three hundred dollars per acre. 



The sugar is of the finest qualit} r , and can readily be put into any 

 desirable shape, whether loaf, lump, crushed, granulated, or pulverized. 

 The average annual importation of sugar into the port of San Francisco 

 is something more than fifty million pounds, worth, duties paid, about 

 five million dollars. This is a very considerable drain upon our wealth 



