AGRICULTURE AND SOILS OF CALIFORNIA. 489 
Amaranths (A. retroflerus, spinosus, and others), the two cockle-burs 
(Xanthiwn spinosum and strumarium), and other homely weeds, both 
of Europe and the Atlantic States, greet the immigrant with their 
familiar, if not altogether welcome, faces. The number of these is con- 
tinually increasing, some being as yet confined to afew localities, as, é. ¢., 
the mouse-tail (Jfyosurus) to the peninsula north of the Golden Gate; 
the Canada thistle to the neighborhood of Chico; while the common 
purslane (Portulaca oleracea) appears dotted, here and there, all over 
the State. The advent of some of these is still historically traceable to 
the importation of some particular lot of seed, or to the unpacking of a 
box or crate of goods packed in straw; and in view of the direct com- 
munication of California by sea with all parts of the world, there is, of 
course, no limit to the possibilities of the importation of both foreign 
weeds and insects, save such as isimposed by climate. The latter, how- 
ever, is so peculiarly cosmopolitan and tolerant, permitting both the 
currant and the orange to flourish in the same orchard, that we may 
fairly expect the weeds and insect pests of India and Siberia to unite in 
worrying the Californian farmer hereafter, unless some preventive meas- 
ures are taken. Even now, the weed question has assumed exceptional 
importance in the agricultural practice of California, in interfering with 
the otherwise so desirable practice of dry sowing in summer-fallowed 
ground; and it is notable that, among the weeds so interfering, there is 
scarcely one of material importance that is a native. The legislative 
action so far taken refers only to the Canada and Scotch thistles; and, 
curiously enough, the law misses its mark so far as the latter is con- 
cerned, the plant intended to be reached by it being in reality not the 
true Scotch thistle (Onopordon), but the milk thistle (Silybum). Among 
the many resinous, clammy plants popularly designated as “ Tar-weed,” 
formidable from their effects on the pants or skirts that brush by them, 
there are several native composites, and (on the Sierra slope) one of the 
Mimosa family, but none is more troublesome than the imported Madia 
(Mf. Sativa), which is everywhere found in fields and waste grounds, 
though nowhere, so far as I know, in cultivation for its oily seeds. 
FORAGE CROPS. 
As already stated, the rainless summers in the part of California 
under consideration exclude from its agricultural system, at least on 
unirrigated land, both permanent meadows and clover. The search for 
forage plants suitable for such climatic conditions was early begun and 
is far from being as yet concluded. The most obvious expedient, 
adopted at the outset and still supplying the bulk of dry forage, is the 
cutting of the ordinary cereal crops for hay before the grain ripens. 
“ Wheat hay” and “barley hay,” which with oats similarly cured con- 
stitute the main mass of the hay crop, are among the Californian oddi- 
ties that first strike the agricultural immigrant. Most of the late-sown 
grain, as well as so much of the early sown as from any cause does not 
promise a good grain crop, and the “volunteer crop” that commonly 
springs up from the seed shed in harvesting the previous season’s grain 
on land left untilled, is devoted to this purpose, for which it generally 
becomes fit some time in May, according to location. Oddly enough, 
embarrassment not uncommonly arises on fresh and strong land from 
the fact that the straw is so strong and tall as to render it unsuitable 
for curing into hay. A great deal, also, is cut at too late a period, when 
the grain is almost full grown—it being well known that it is then that 
