Xo. 4.] GOING WEST. 415 



The dried figs of commerce are as little like fresh ripe figs ' 

 as dried apples are like fresh ripe pippins. 



This seems the natural home of our cultivated flowers ; 

 even among the foot-hills they grow with the greatest lux- 

 uriance. Roses and oleanders grow to be as lar^e as 

 ordinary pear trees, and bloom throughout the year, the 

 mild winter having no damaging efi'ect upon them. 



I spent several weeks on a grain ranch near Stockton. It 

 contained two thousand acres of fine level land, with not a 

 native tree upon it. Ten miles of four-slat board fence, 

 costino- five thousand dollars, had been built to enclose it. 

 The knd was very sandy, and did not appear to be capable 

 of sustainimr plants of any kind, but it will produce Irom 

 eio-ht to twehe bushels of wheat per acre without the appli- 

 cation of fertilizers of any kind. These sand plains are 

 used only for the production of grain, and the ranchers 

 have usually done fairly well. One who farmed five thou- 

 sand acres could not make it pay for several years, but at 

 last one favorable season gave him an extra large crop, and 

 he was enabled to pocket fifty thousand dollars from it. 

 These wheat farms are all large, none being less than a 

 quarter section, or one hundred and sixty aci;es. ^\ i h 

 proper machines one man can care for six hundred and forty 

 acres. Gang ploughs are used, and the seed is dropped 

 from a seed-box attached to the plough and covered at the 

 time of ploughing. Vegetables and fruits grow well in this 



section. „ , . 



There is another class of land used for wheat growing, 

 viz , the black clay or " doby" land. This is much more 

 productive, but is also much harder to work, and m an 

 unusually wet season cannot be worked. It must be sum- 

 mer-fallowed once in three years. One hundred acres is all 

 a man can care for, and highways in this section become 

 impassable in the rainy season. 



Grain growers commence to sow and plough as soon as 

 the rainy season begins. Often on large farms they sow 

 a portion during the dry season without ploughing, simply 

 harrowino- it in. The wheat needs no rain aft^r April, and 

 the -rowers do not want to see a drop of ram from Aprd to 

 the "last of November, llain in ^lay starts the weeds, in 



