426 CONDITIONS AFFECTING AGRICULTURAL PROSPERITY. 



less seasons in succession destroy not only crops and fields, but 

 stock also; in the summer of 1863-4, more than 800,000 neat 

 cattle and sheep died of starvation. The difference in the rain 

 fall varies greatly in different parts of the State. We give the 

 following exhaustive paper on the rain-fall, from the report of 

 the Board of Irrigation Commissioners: 



The climate of the Pacific coast west of the Sierra Nevada and 

 Cascade mountains is altogether different from tkat of the Atlantic 

 coast, and differs also from that of the country between the eastern 

 slope of the Rocky mountains and the Sierra Nevada. The ordinary 

 form of rain-fall tables fails to exhibit its characteristic, so that upon 

 this coast tabulated results of precipitation of rain and snow are 

 made out for the rainy season, which extends from about October 

 15 to April 1. No rain, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, 

 falls during the dry season, between April 1 and October 15, in the 

 latitude of 38. Northward of that latitude, and especially north 

 ward of latitude 40, there is frequently a small rain-fall during the 

 summer, and a heavy rain-fall during the winter. 



Southward of 38 the rainy season is shortened and the dry season 

 lengthened, so that at San Diego, iu latitude 32J, the rain-fall on 

 the immediate coast averaged only 9.2 inches during twenty- three 

 years. 



On the coast, about latitude 28, is the region of the &quot; doldrums/ 

 where little rain falls, but where a cloudy region exists. South of 

 that latitude, the seasons are changed, and our rainy season is the 

 dry season of the southern part of Lower California, and our dry 

 season their wet season. 



At the extremity of the peninsula of Lower California, only 3^- 

 inches fell last summer. The rain-fall at San Francisco, which may 

 be taken as a type, averages 23.5 annually, distributed as follows: 



Total for the Summer 0.07 



Inches. Inches. 



June 0.04 



July .., 0.01 



August. . 0.02 



September 0.10 



October 0.64 Total for the Autumn. 3.57 



November 2.83 



December 5.42 



January 5.30 [ Total for the Winter, ............ 14.32 



February 3.60 ( 



March 3.18 ) 



April 1.74 } Total for the Spring 5.56 



May 0.64 ) 



Yearly average ~ 23.52 



The tabulated results of rain-fall upon the western coast of the 

 United States, from San Diego to Puget Sound, given by the Smith 

 sonian Contributions, confirm this example as a type, having the 

 following characteristics : 



&quot;A most decided minimum during the summer months, amount 



