176 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



San Joaquin, and 14 in Sacramento. In 1860, the reported 

 average was 45 bushels in San Luis Obispo, 35 in Yolo and 

 Calaveras, 34 in Placer, 30 in Sonoma, Stanislaus, Yuba, and 

 Amador, 27 in Santa Cruz, 26 in Fresno and Tulare, 25 in Te- 

 hama, Butte, Humboldt, and Xapa, 24 in Kevada, 20 in San 

 Diego, Santa Clara, and Shasta, 18 in San Joaquin, and 15 in 

 Sacramento. 



In 1855, the worst year for wheat w^e have ever known in 

 . California, when both smut and rust raged from Siskiyou to 

 San Diego, the average crop of the state was put down as 15 

 bushels per acre. Of 12,233 acres sown in Sonoma county, 

 only 3,500 were harvested; and of 2,490 sown in Marin, all 

 but 462 went untouched by the reaper. 



In Ohio, the average wheat-crop is about sixteen bushels per 

 acre ; and in England, with all their manuring and careful 

 ploughing, twenty-oue bushels. In California, no manure is 

 applied ; the soil is ploughed but once in most fields, and there 

 is little rest for the land by rotation of crops. 



It is a singular fact that where wheat is sown under oak- 

 trees, the stalks are usually thicker and taller, and the grain 

 more abundant, than in other places. This may be owing to 

 the facts that the trees protect the ground under them from 

 the frost, and also retain the moisture; and that while the 

 country v\'as in the hands of the Mexicans, the cattle had pos- 

 session of the valleys, and, collecting under the trees in the 

 summer-time, their manure enriched the soil there. The roots 

 of the oak-trees in the valleys do not run along the surface of 

 the ground, but go deeper for moisture, and thus the plough 

 can run up to the trunk, and put all the land in order for grain. 



The principal wheat-growing counties in the state are San 

 Joaquin, which in 1860 produced 895,000 bushels ; Xapa, with 

 652,000 ; Yolo, with 459,000 ; Alameda, wath 440,000 ; Santa 

 Clara, with 400,000 ; Yuba, with 223,000 ; Santa Cruz, with 

 243,000 ; Sonoma, wdth 275,000 ; and Contra Costa, with 

 450,000. 



It is almost impossible that there should ever be an entire 



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