478 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. ° 
known porticns of California, there is also, of course, a wide diversity of 
local climates., The salient climatic feature of the whole, however, is 
that practically all the water relied on for the production of crops falls 
between the middle of November and the first of April. The rains come 
from the south, often accompanied by strong but steady winds; some- 
times in storms lasting but a day, more frequently three days, and some- 
times, with little interruption, for two or more weeks; they are unaccom- 
panied by lightning, and thunder is rarely heard more than once a year 
in Middle and Southern California. It is during this rainy period that 
crops are made or undone; the impetus then given to vegetation must 
carry it to maturity, and the kind intensity of that “start” will, in the - 
majority of cases, determine the ultimate yield. Rains of brief duration 
may fall before or after the epoch mentioned, or exceptionally in any 
month in the year; but if so, they are looked upon with indifference at 
best, and mostly with well-founded apprehension of harm, since they in 
terfere with the plan of agricultural operations established on the average 
supposition that fully six months in the year will be practically rainless. 
When, moreover, it is understood that in a large portion of the region 
under consideration the average annual rainfall barely comes up to the 
minimum of 10 inches estimated to be necessary for the growth of a crop, 
while over most of the remaining portion the average does not exceed 
(except locally) twice and a half that minimum, it will be readily con- 
ceived that the California farmer watches the rain-gauge with the same 
feelings with which the Egyptian regards the nilometer ; and as the lat- 
ter counts his seasons by Nile-inundaticns, so the California farmer 
reckons his time by “seasons” instead of calendar years. it is of com- 
paratively little interest to him bow much rain has failen from January 
to January, as exhibited in the usual form of meteorological tables; for 
the 40 inches of rainfall so shown as the aggregate of two consecutive 
years may have been so distributed as to leave him “high and dry” 
during one growing season, with an excess for the other. 
In order to exhibit the “fat” and “lean” years of California, it is nec- 
essary to tabulate or plot the rainfall by “‘seasons”; and after some 
unsuccessful attempts to connect their recurrence with the eleven- 
year period of the sun-spots, a discussion of the observations of 
twenty-eight years now on record, Prof. G. F. Becker, of the University 
of California, seems to show the existence of a thirteen-year period be- 
tween consecutive minima, the second minimum within the time of the 
American occupation having occurred in the season of 1876~77, with a 
rainfall of only 10 inches at San Francisco, where the average is 23% 
inches; while in some portions of the upper San Joaquin Valley, as at 
Bakersfield, as well as in the region of the Mojave Desert, there was 
not rainfall enough to start vegetation at all, and no ground not irri- 
gated was broken that season. In autumn, 1877, much of that region 
resembled a well-swept barn foor. There is an Indian tradition that at 
one time toward the end of summer water was only found in pools in 
the Sacramento River, so little snow having failen the previous winter 
that all streams ceased to flow. From information kindly furnished me 
by H. H. Bancroft, esq., of San Francisco, it appears that in the rec- 
ords of the early explorers of California, the year 1805 is known as the 
‘‘hungry year,” the drought having been extraordinarily severe; and 
nearly the same account is given of the year 1817. It will be observed 
that these dates indicate a period of twelve years between themselves, 
and that the interval from the latter date to 1877—for those drought-years 
as yet no data have been found—is also divisible by the same number. 
It is quite intelligible that as the result of several concurrent causes 
the period may vary between such Limits as twelve and thirteen. 
