174 RESOUKCES OF CALIFOKNIA. 



cleaned there before it can be ground. Our farmers, however, 

 are gradually becoming more careful in cleaning their wheat. 



In the plumpness and size of the berry, our wheat compares 

 well with that of Europe and the Atlantic states, but can per- 

 haps claim no decided superiority. Comparing the diiferent 

 districts of the state with one another on this point, Suscol 

 probably deserves the first place, and Napa the next. In the 

 Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, the wheat is often shriv- 

 elled by hot winds, which blow for three or four successive days 

 while the grain is in the milk, and seem to blast it. Great 

 diiferences are observed, however, according to the season. 



The weight of Californian wheat is usually sixty pounds j)er 

 bushel, seldom less — frequently sixty-two, and sometimes sixty- 

 five ; thus entithng our state to a high position in that respect. 



The average yield of Californian wheat-fields is from twenty 

 to twenty-five bushels per acre, which is about thirty-three per 

 cent, more than in the states on the Atlantic slope. An old 

 Spanish book of records, of the mission of San Diego, states 

 that, in 1*778, twelve fanegas (a fanega is about two bushels) 

 of w^heat were sown, and three hundred and fifty fanegas were 

 harvested — an increase of thirty-fold. The next year, sixteen 

 fanegas were sown, and the yield was one hundred and sixty 

 fanegas. In 1780, twenty-four fanegas were sown, and eight 

 hundred harvested — an increase of thirty-three-fold. San Die- 

 go is far inferior for wheat-growing to the coast valleys about 

 San Francisco Bay; and previous to the coming of the Ameri- 

 cans the ground was not ploughed, but only scratched, and the 

 limb of a tree was used for a harrow. 



Colton, in his "Three Years m CaKfornia" (page 442), states 

 that while the priests still had sole control of the missions and 

 mission-lands, previous to 1833, the mayordomo or steward of 

 the Mission of San Jose harvested 4,300 fanegas of wheat from 

 40 fanegas of seed ; and at the next harvest he had a volunteer 

 crop of 2,600 fanegas on the same land. The first year, ac- 

 cording to this report, the increase was 107-fold, and the next 

 year 65 -fold. At the Mission of Soledad, according to the 



