414 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. [Pub. Doc. 



cessitating long journeys and consuming considerable time. 

 The cows are confined for the night in a corral or yard. The 

 winters on the foot-hills are very mild, and freezing weather 

 is rarely experienced. It rains much of the time, but more 

 often during the night than in the day time, and but seldom 

 snows. Our common New Enijland orasses are but seldom 

 seen. Oats, l)arley and alfalfa are grown, but are cut green 

 and made into hay, and this constitutes the agriculture of 

 the foot-hills. When this hay is plenty it sells for ten or 

 fifteen dollars per ton, but when scarce sometimes advances 

 to forty dollars. Shorts and middlings are largely fed to 

 cows in the dry season, and the feed of a cow costs forty 

 cents per day for four or five months. Milk sells for twelve 

 and one-half cents per quart. 



The usual course is to raise a crop of oats or barley, which 

 is sown in the fall, plough the field the following year and 

 leave it without a crop. This is called summer fallowing. 

 The third year a crop is again taken. If a crop is required 

 every year, dressing is freely used in the mountain towns. 

 The dressing costs nothing. Most of the gardens of these 

 districts are cultivated by Italians, who raise fruit and vege- 

 tables for sale. These gardens are liberally dressed with 

 manure, sometimes as nmch as forty cords per acre being 

 applied. The ground is kept under a crop the entire year, 

 one crop immediately following another. 



All kinds of veo:etal)les that are o-rown in the East are 

 raised. Tomato vines are trained on polos. I have seen 

 them growing eight feet high. The fruit is thus exposed to 

 the sun, and ripens fast. These gardens must be irrigated 

 during the dry season. Strawberries ripen the latter part 

 of May ; early apples, peaches and apricots in July ; pears, 

 plums, nectarines and sweet-water grapes in August. Po- 

 tatoes are full grown in June. Orange and pomegranate 

 trees grow and produce well. Almond and olive trees grow 

 well in that locality, and bear plentifully. The almond and 

 olive trees resemble poach trees. The black walmit tree is 

 grown in yards for shade and ornament, and produces nuts 

 somewhat resembling the English walnut. Fig trees pro- 

 duce three crops in a year. The fruit is very sweet, soft 

 and pulpy, and will keep but a few days after it is fully ripe. 



