AGEICULTTJEE. I5l 



the places where the Avater rnns in winter. The only trees 

 growing away from the watercourses are oaks, which are 

 usually found in groves, and almost invariably without under- 

 growth. 



. In the Sacramento valley there are about two hundred 

 square miles, or one hundred and twenty-eight thousand acres, 

 of tule-land, most of it above high tide, and covered by water 

 only in times of flood. Very httle of it has been drained or 

 cultivated, and therefore we do not know its value. All the 

 tule-land is covered five or six feet deep with water in times 

 of flood. 



The northern part of the San Joaquin valley is much like 

 the southern part of the Sacramento valley. When the San 

 Joaquin River approaches within fifty miles of Suisun Bay, it 

 divides into three channels, which are separated from one an- 

 other by islands of low tule-land. In times of high flood, the 

 river spreads out and covers a space fifteen or twenty miles 

 wide. There is less gravel and clay but more sand in the San 

 Joaquin valley than in the Sacramento valley ; the soil is drier, 

 and contains more of alkaline substances, and the vegetation 

 is more scanty. From Pachecos Pass across to Firebaugh's 

 Ferry, a distance of about fifty miles, there is not a tree, and 

 in the autumn the country looks like a desert. At Fresno 

 City the soil is nearly a pure sand, and the river at low water 

 is not more than six or eischt feet below the surface of the 

 plain. From the bend of the San Joaquin River, southward, 

 a district sixty miles wide by one hundred and fifty long, most 

 of the soil is a barren sand, in many places covered with an 

 alkaline efflorescence. 



The country about Kern River is very desolate, and be- 

 tween that river and the Tejon Pass is a desert plain, covered 

 with a scanty and useless vegetation. East of Tulare Lake, 

 however, there is some rich soil, particularly in the " Four- 

 Creek country," where the Cahuilhi River, issuing from the 

 mountains, divides into half a dozen streams, which spread out 

 over a space twelve miles wide, and then unite again, filling a 



