434 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



There are 40,000,000 acres of tillable land in the state, but 

 not more than 1,000,000 acres are now cultivated. In 1860, 

 the aggregate product of grains and roots of annual growth 

 amounted to 14,4*70,000 bushels, being an average of twenty- 

 four bushels to the acre cultivated, and of thirty-eight bushels 

 to each inhabitant of the state. The crojD of barley was the 

 largest, measuring 5,700,000 bushels; that of wheat, 5,000,000 

 bushels ; oats and potatoes, each, 1,500,000 bushels ; and maize, 

 500,000 bushels. The barley forms thirty-nine per cent, of the 

 14,470,000 bushels; wheat, thirty-four per cent.; oats and po- 

 tatoes, each ten per cent. ; maize, three per cent. ; and beans, 

 peas, sweet potatoes, buckwheat, and rye, one-half of one per 

 cent. each. 



Farmers in California have many advantages over men of 

 the same occupation in other parts of the United States. The 

 winter is never so cold as to interrupt their work, and there 

 are no storms of rain and hail to destroy their grain and hay. 

 They need no barns. Barley thrives better than in any other 

 part of the world. The soil and climate are also particularly 

 favorable to the growth of wheat, which unites the valuable 

 qualities of whiteness, dryness, and glutinousness, to a greater 

 degree than any other wheat in the world. Our average crops 

 are also larger than in any other place where manure is not 

 used extensively. The yield of hops is large, and the facilities 

 for drying them, so as to preserve their strength, are better 

 than in any other land where they are cultivated. Our kitchen 

 vegetables grow to an unparalleled size. Nowhere else have 

 pumpkins been seen to reach two hundred and fifty pounds in 

 weight each, beets one hundred and twenty pounds, white 

 turnips twenty-six pounds, solid-headed cabbages seventy-five 

 pounds, carrots ten pounds, water-melons sixty-five pounds, 

 onions forty-seven ounces, Irish potatoes seven pounds, sweet 

 potatoes fifteen pounds, and so forth. Some cabbages and 

 beets have spontaneously become perennials here, continuing 

 to grow from year to year, and remaining green throughout 

 winter and summer ; and many of our kitchen vegetables 



