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making excellent flour. Some prefer the Sonora because it yields well and 
matures quicker. The best time for sowing is early in the season, in February 
or early March, if the weather will permit; some have sown in January, with 
good results. Harvesting, about the 20th of July. Mode of culture: sowing 
broadcast and harrowing, accompanied by irrigation during growth, but if sown 
early little water is required; none drilled, though our correspondent thinks 
the drill would be an advantage, if introduced. In Esmeralda, the Australian, 
Club, red Mediterranean and Tappahannock wheat are cultivated; about one- 
tenth of the crop is drilled. 
6. Blue-joint, red-top, clover, peavine, wire-grass, wild rye, &c., are the nat- 
ural grasses, upon which farm animals frequently graze the entire year, and 
perhaps 11 months on an average. Our Washoe reporter estimates the 
cost per head for keeping full-grown stock, $25 to $30 per year, whilst in Esme- 
ralda it is given at $15 per head. 
7. Fruit has been but little tried as yet, but apples, peaches, &c., of the 
hardier varieties have done well so far as experiments have been made. The 
question has not been so fully tested, however, as to warrant an opinion as to 
capabilities. 
CALIFORNIA. 
1. Our returns from California are quite meagre, and not sufficiently com- 
plete to form a basis of judgment for the entire State; yet we give such as have 
come to hand, as being of interest so far as they extend. Yuba county reports 
an advance of 75 per cent. in the value of the higher farm lands since 1860. 
Monterey puts the increase at 30 per cent., and Del Norte 12 per cent.; whilst 
Amador and 'Tuolumne report a decline of 50 per cent. since the date named. 
Our San Francisco correspondent says that farming lands throughout the State 
have largely increased in value, and estimates that all improved farming property 
has fully doubled in value since 1860. Our Yuba reporter writes as follows: 
In order to make my answers plain to you I must state that in California we have two 
chains of mountains running north and south, the Coast range and the Sierra Nevada; the 
former stretching along the coast to the west, and the latter along the State line to the east. 
Between these mountains there is a valley called the valley of the Sacramento, reaching from 
Mount Shasta on the north to the southern limit of the bay of San Francisco, and about 400 
miles in length. This depression or valley is from 20 to 60 miles in width. Along the bays 
and the lower extremity of the Sacramento river there are thousands of acres of swamp and 
overflowed lands. Higher up on the rivers and in the valley there is a great deal of lower 
bottom lands, very rich and productive, and subject to nearly annual overflows. Much of 
this is yearly being destroyed by mining, by the deposit of from two to ten feet of sand, 
gravel, and debris brought down the rivers in times of overflow from the working of the 
mines in the mountains. This deposit has already destroyed over 8,000 acres of the richest 
lands in my county that ever lay under the sun: lands worth from $100 to $150 per acre are 
now not worth $3 per acre. Indeed the garden of the State has been and is being destroyed ; 
fields, orchards, vineyards, fences and improvements all buried up and obliterated, and 
only remaining a white, drifty, sandy waste. So*the mines are becoming a curse to the 
State. Now, besides these overflowed swamp and bottom lands there is in the valley whiat 
is called the higher plain lands, which constitute about two-thirds of the whole valley. This 
land is of a heavy, dry clay soil, and was at first considered worthless. Along the mountain 
sides there is a similar soil; and this, with the little valleys in the mountains, is now being 
extensively cultivated. These high lands, as I shall call them, are adapted to wheat, barley, 
oats, rye, orchards and vineyards, but are too dry in summer for corn, potatoes, &c. 
Various reasons are given for the decrease in value of farm lands in Tuolumne 
and Amador. In the former it is attributed in part to the failure of either State 
or federal laws to protect improved lands from the miners, or those who are ever 
on the watch to locate claims upon lands improved by the money and toil of the 
honest settler. 
2. The average value of wild or unimproved land in Yuba county is $4 per . 
acre; this land is productive, and of the character indicated in the above extract ; 
it will produce, according to our reporter, if fallowed, 60 bushels of wheat to the’ 
acre, and 40 to 45 bushels if not fallowed, and other cereals in proportion. In 
