AGRICULTURE AND SOILS OF CALIFORNIA. 477 
be brought from the East at great expense, it was the obvious policy to 
bring only the best. But many even of these were soon found to be behind 
the requirements of California progressiveness, and home invention ana 
manufacture soon set to work, hand in hand, for still farther improvements. 
The great Moline plow and the sulky cultivator of the Western States 
were combined into the gang-plow, and the self-binding reaper was ren- 
dered superfluous by the gigantic header, which dispenses with both bind- 
ing and stacking. Finally, to save time and handling still farther, we are 
threatened with a combination of the header and thrasher, whereby the 
grain is almost automatically sacked, ready for shipment to Liverpool, 
within a minute or two of its removal from the stalk on which it grew. The 
steam-plow and steam-wagon, whenever their time comes, will nowhere 
find as warm a welcome as in California. In curious contrast to this re- 
finement of perfected appliances stands the crude system of culture in 
which they are employed. In direct proportion to their efficiency they 
aid in robbing the soil more rapidly of the accumulated treasures of a 
thousand years; and soil-exhaustion progresses with long strides, 
leaving far behind the puny efforts of the growers of wheat and corn in 
the Western States, and successfully emulating the ruinous system of 
cotton-planting in the South. Outside of truck-gardens, vineyards, and 
to some extent orchards, the only means of soil improvement thus far 
practiced on a large scale is the summer-fallow, not even the rotation 
of crops being as yet recognized in any great degree as a necessary 
means of husbanding the resources of the soil. Nothing can in this re- 
spect be more eloquent than the fact that the two establishments in 
San Francisco now manufacturing bone and meat manures from the 
slaughter-house offal have to seek and do find a ready market for their 
products in New Zealand and Australia. But it is not an easy task to 
persuade the Californian farmer that his methods are not what they 
should be. Having been obliged to discard a good many of the old- 
country practices, his conviction that things in California are altogether 
different, exceptional, and without precedent, is strong and deep-seated ; 
and certain experiences had with “ experts” at the mines in olden times 
have left him a strong impression that not only a new practice but a 
new science will have to be set up to meet the case of California. 
It is undoubtedly true, that suggestions for advantageous changes in 
time-honored practice have to be made with unusual caution by any one 
not thoroughly familiar with the peculiarities of a California climate and 
its possible unexpected developments. It is proverbial that “no two 
Seasons are alike,” and that “the oldest citizen” is apt to be more cautious 
in his predictions of the weather than the novice, who allows himself to 
be misled by his eastern experience, while neither usually comes very near 
the mark. It is impossible to discuss intelligently the peculiarities of 
agriculture in California without adverting somewhat in detail to the 
climatic features upon which the former depend. It is self-evident that 
within a coast State, stretching through ten and a half degrees of lati- 
tude (as far as from Boston to Southern Georgia), and diversified with 
mountain chains, local climate must vary greatly; and he who cannot 
find within these limits some spot to suit his tastes must be fastidious 
indeed. In matter of fact, the seasons in the most northerly counties of 
the State resemble much more nearly those of Oregon than those of 
Middle and Southern California in the amount and distribution of the 
rainfall, the governing influence which chiefly determines agricultural 
peculiarities everywhere. It is, therefore, mainly the southern three- 
fourths of the State of California I propose to consider here. Within 
these limits, which embrace the most populous and most generally 
