9 



Upon this subject Mr. Shippee of Stockton, an experienced wheat 

 grower, says : "First, we have a climate that is wonderfully well adapted 

 " for the production of wheat. In the second place, our lands are level ; 

 " are cultivated by large gang plows, from two to eight in a gang, and 

 " handled by one man ; while one man is able to plow more in one day 

 " in this State than in almost every other State in the Union, in like 

 " manner is he able to sow and harrow more. In the third place, the 

 " machinery used in harvesting enables the wheat grower to harvest his 

 " entire crop at less than half what it costs in any other State, since no 

 " other State possesses these harvesters. Fourth, we have no rains in 

 " the summer to interfere ; we begin harvesting in June and wind up in 

 " October, and are not compelled to take the grain out of the field until 

 u the harvest season is over. No other portion of the wheat producing 

 " zones can do this." 



Joseph Cone, a very large wheat grower of the Sacramento valley, 

 confirms these statements, and declares that wheat can be grown for less 

 in California than in any other country of the world. He illustrates 

 graphically the progress that has been made in economic methods of 

 producing wheat by saying that under the old system, when harvesting 

 was done with a sickle, threshing done with a flail and separating done 

 by the primitive method of a fan, a tenth of an acre was as much as a 

 single harvester could cut, thresh, separate and sack in one day ; or, in 

 other words, it would require the labor of ten men to harvest, separate 

 and sack one acre of wheat, but with the machinery now in use the result 

 is seven and one-half acres a day for each man employed in harvesting, 

 or seventy-five times the productive capacity of an individual harvester 

 under former systems. 



Hon. H. M. La Rue says: " That wheat may be raised more economi- 

 " cally in California than elsewhere is perfectly tenable. Our wheat 

 " lauds are generally level, uniform in quality ; our soil is rich and easily 

 " worked. Our system of summer fallowing enables us to do our plow- 

 " ing in the spring, and our seeding in the long days in the fall before 

 " the rainy season commences. Owing to our long dry summers, we 

 " have ample time for harvest, without danger from wet weather. Our 

 " climate also enables us to use the most improved machinery, both in 

 " seeding and harvesting. The combined harvester can be used to better 

 " advantage in California than in any other wheat-growing country, and 

 " by its use we have been enabled to reduce the cost of harvesting, 

 " threshing and cleaning sixty per cent of what it costs in other coun- 

 " tries." 



I present the testimony of these intelligent and experienced gentle- . 

 men, practical wheat growers, as conclusive of the assertion that wheat 

 can be grown more cheaply in California than elsewhere. The full sig- 

 nificance of this can scarcely be realized. Now if the advantages of soil, 

 climate and general environment are present in every market in the 

 world, California can raise breadstuff's at a price which would be unre- 

 munerative to any other portion of the wheat-growing zone. Distance 



