484 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
sent ancient lake, or rather, perhaps, swamp deposits, which are there- 
fore found in corresponding positions in most of the connecting valleys. 
On the bay we find usually only a narrow strip of sandy soil running 
along the beach; inland of this a level belt of black adobe (or at times 
salt marsh), from which there is a gradual ascent toward the foot of the 
Coast Range, the soil becoming lighter colored and mingled with bowlders 
and rock fragments. The nature of the materials, as well as the form 
of portions of this slope, characterizes them almost inevitably as the 
result of glacial action. 
The peninsula on which San Francisco is situated is overrun with the . 
dune sand drifted from the ocean beach for a distance of several miles 
south from the Golden Gate, so that the fixing of the sand and its con- 
version into soil is one of the chief problems of the gardens and parks of 
that city. The city of Oakland, also, is situated on a somewhat sandy, 
but nevertheless quite productive, soil; and land of a similar character, 
but stronger by admixture of the adobe, yet easily tilled, forms the soil 
of the fertile valleys in the plain lying between the eastern shore of the 
bay and the coast range, which are largely devoted to market-gardens 
and fruit-culture, and, farther from the cities, to that of barley. The 
comparative difficulty and more or less of uncertainty attendant upon the 
cultivation of the adobe soils, unless very thoroughly tilled, has caused 
a preference to be very commonly given to the lighter soils found nearer 
to the streams, which are formed of a mixture of the adobe with the 
river sediment, or, nearest the water-courses, of that sediment alone. 
It is suggestive of the character of the majority of California streams 
that the word “bottom,” used east of the mountains to designate the 
well-defined flood-plain, is scarcely heard in the State, the more indefi- 
nite and general term “valley” being in general use. The obvious rea- 
son is that there is in most cases no very definite terrace, but a rather 
gradual slope from the bank to the bordering hills. The Sacramento and 
San Joaquin have not, as a rule, raised their immediate banks perceptibly 
above the rest of the flood-plain, because the sediment they carry is not 
such as will subside at the slightest diminution of velocity, but is apt 
to be carried some distance inland. At the points of its upper course 
the San Joaquin, and in the lower portions both it and the Sacramento, 
subdivide into numerous sloughs traversing wide belts of more or less 
marshy flats, subject to overflow, and covered with a rank growth of 
“tule.” This name applies, strictly speaking, to the round rush (Scirpus 
Lacustris), which occupies predominantly the tide-water marshes, here 
as well as on the Gulf of Mexico. The farther from salt water, how- 
ever, the more it is intermingled with (or locally almost replaced by) 
other aquatic grasses, sedges, and cat-tail flag (Typha), affording, to- 
gether with the young “tule,” excellent pasture nearly throughout the 
the year. Here, as elsewhere in such districts, the cattle soon acquire 
the art of keeping themselves from getting bogged, by maintaining a 
sort of paddling motion when on peaty ground, while draught-horses 
require to be provided with broad ‘“ tule-shoes.” These tule lands, em- 
bracing a large number of rich and partly reclaimed islands, such as 
Union, Brannan, Sherman, and others, forming part of the counties of 
of Sacramento, San Joaquin, and Solano, continue with varying width 
along the east shores of Suisun and San Pablo Bays, and up the tribu- 
tary valleys of Napa, Sonoma, and Petaluma, nearly to the limit of 
tide-water. It is noteworthy that, as regards salubrity, the tules, at 
least so far as they are within reach of brakish tide-water, are less liable 
to malarious fevers than the upper portions of the great valleys. 
The soil of the tule lands is of two principal kinds: sediment land, 
