AND ITS INHABITANTS 153 



could not raise crops. This difference was due to climate. At 

 first sight the climates of the two regions appear closely 

 similar. Both are dry. Salt Lake City, in the home of the 

 Utes, for example, has an average rainfall of sixteen inches 

 per year. Los Angeles, where lived some of the lowest Cali- 

 fornia Indians, has the same. Santa Fe, In the center of the 

 Pueblo district, receives a yearly average of nearly fifteen 

 inches. Why, then, was agriculture and hence civilization so 

 different in the two types? The answer is found in the 

 season of rainfall. At Santa Fe the months of June, July, and 

 August have an average of 8.4 inches of rainfall, whereas at 

 Salt Lake City the same months average only 2.2 inches, and 

 at Los Angeles are practically rainless. 



Today the greatness of California depends upon its farms 

 more than upon any other material feature; and the farms of 

 Utah are also by no means to be despised. It must be remem- 

 bered, however, that wheat, barley, beets, grapes, oranges, and 

 other orchard fruits are the staples of agriculture in these 

 regions. They are raised largely by means of elaborate sys- 

 tems of irrigation which utilize the winter snows upon the 

 mountains. Where Irrigation Is not practised, cattle are the 

 great agricultural resource. The other foundation of pros- 

 perity is mining. All these things are essentially European. 

 The crops which place parts of California and Utah among 

 the world's garden plots are not indigenous to America. The 

 cattle and horses which browse on a thousand brown hillsides 

 had no counterpart in the New World before Columbus. Since 

 iron tools were unknown, the art of mining was impossible. So 

 far as anyone has yet pointed out, the poor Indians had no 

 plants that would serve in place of those with which the early 

 people of the Old World were blessed. The absence of sum- 

 mer rain which is typical of all subtropical climates caused the 

 vegetation to be scanty, and hence wild animals, wild seeds, and 

 fruits were also scarce. Thus the people were condemned to be 



