344 Transactions of the 



The proceeds of the wheat crop raised on the one thousand acres 

 planted has been sixty-seven thousand seven hundred dollars — within 

 three hundred dollars of the entire purchase money. Besides this, there 

 are several thousand dollars worth of vegetables now on the land not 

 yet gathered. 



The center of the island is now being burned preparatory to seeding 

 and tramping, while the sheep are fattening on the surplus grain left on 

 the last year's stubble, and tramping in or volunteering what they can- 

 not e;it. 



The levee around Twitchell Island is twelve feet base and three and a 

 half feet high. The wagons used on this island have wheels with fel- 

 loes and tire six inches wide. The steam thrashing machine and boiler 

 were provided with like wide-wheeled wagons. This precaution is 

 necessary to make them float, and yet, as they roll along over the 

 surface, they stir up clouds of dust. 



SHERMAN ISLAND 



Lies between the two largest rivers in California — the Sacramento wash- 

 ing the northwestern bank and the San Joaquin the southeastern. The 

 head of the island is within three miles of Eio Vista, and the foot 

 directly opposite Collin sville. We judge it contains about twelve thou- 

 sand acres; it was the first of this great group of islands leveed, and is 

 in a more forward state of reclamation and cultivation than any other. 



We visited but one farm on this island — that of A. J. Bigelow, on the 

 Sacramento River. Mr. Bigelow owns four hundred and thirty acres 

 lying in a body — about half under cultivation. If we had seen nothing 

 before, we saw enough here to convince us that the resources of our 

 State are but just beginning to be known and developed, and that the 

 garden spot of California will yet lie found in the tule lauds forming the 

 deltas of her two great rivers. Here were grapes, strawberries, water- 

 melons, muskmelons, sugar beets, mangel wurtzeis. carrots, parsnips, 

 turnips, squashes, corn, tomatoes, wheat, barley, Chile clover, red 

 clover, timothy, and we cannot say how many other horticultural 

 and agricultural products growing, and all in the greatest perfection, on 

 a soil, the cost of which is not much over half the cost of cultivating 

 the soil of the ordinary upland, while the chances of a failure of any 

 crop, when the seed is once in the ground, are scarcely to be taken into 

 consideration. We were so pleased with the general exhibition of farm 

 products, that in the short time which we had to remain we could 

 gather but few specific facts. 



One field, however, we learned was sowed in February last to barley 

 and Chile clover at the same time. There had been gathered from this 

 field a crop of barley of over sixty bushels to the acre, and since that 

 time the clover had been mown twice, yielding each time a ton and a 

 half per acre, and the third crop was nearly in bloom again. Another 

 field was sown to wheat and Chile clover in February. From this field 

 had been gathered forty-five bushels of wheat to the acre, and one crop 

 of one and a half tons of clover per acre had since been cut, and for 

 three weeks two or three head of stock had been feeding on each acre, 

 and the feed was still knee high and growing luxuriantly. 



The people of Sherman Island have laid it off into school districts, and 

 have already at least one good public school in operation. They have 

 also laid out public roads, and have a Post Office, and a good wharf at 

 the town of Fmmaton, on the west side of the island, at which the Sac- 



