160 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



wet winter. Most of the level land in Los Angeles, San Blt- 

 nardino, and San Diego connties, is sandy and dry, and very 

 little of it is cultivated. Irrigation is necessary for fruit, vines, 

 and vegetables. Wheat and barley do not produce well. Los 

 Angeles is the principal graj^e district in the state ; the largest 

 vineyards are planted in the bottom-lands of the Los Angeles, 

 S.in Gabriel, and Santa Ana Rivers, where the soil is almost 

 pure sand : and yet vineyards which have been in bearing 

 twenty-five years, and have never been manured, are now as 

 productive as ever. Allow a stream of water to run twenty- 

 four hours through a field, and at the end of that time the bot- 

 tom of the ditch will contain nothing but white sand, all the 

 earthy particles in the soil having been dissolved and carried 

 away. At the Monte the San Gabriel River sinks, and, after 

 flowing two or three miles under-ground, reappears. The 

 place where it sinks is very moist, covered with abundant 

 vegetation, and, after Russian River vaUey, is the best district 

 in the state for maize. 



§ 130. Agricultural Produce. — California has 1,000,000 acres 

 of land in cultivation, about six-tenths of which are used for 

 growing grains and roots employed as food for men and do- 

 mestic animals. Of these grains and roots in 1860 (the agri- 

 cultural statistics for which year were more fully reported than 

 those of 1861) the following amounts vrere grown, namely: 

 5,700,000 bushels of barley; 5,000,000 of wheat; 1,500,000 

 of oats; 1,500,000 of potatoes; 500,000 of maize; 65,000 of 

 beans; 55,000 of peas; 55,000 of sweet potatoes; 50,000 of 

 buckwheat, and 40,000 of rye, making an aggregate of 14,- 

 470,000 bushels — an average of twenty-four bushels to the 

 acre, and, estimating the population of the state at 400,000, 

 an average of thirty-eight bushels to the person. I purposely 

 omit the consideration of all articles not enumerated in the 

 list, either because we have no statistics, or because the inser- 

 tion would serve rather to confuse than to instruct. We grow 

 very few roots of the turnip kind as food for cattle. 



Examining, then, the amounts of the crops above mentioned 



