AGRICULTURE. 217 



are necessities : here they could not be used if we had them. 

 Not unfrequently the grain, within two weeks after cutting, 

 is stored in a warehouse in San Francisco ; often it is left lying 

 in sacks upon the fields until it is sold a period of months. 

 In August and September, the square piles of white sacks in 

 the stubble-fields are a common and prominent feature of the 

 Californian landscape in the farming districts. 



As our valleys are not covered with sod, so the first plough- 

 ing is yearly as easy as any of the subsequent ones ; and the 

 severe task of breaking prairie, so common in the States of the 

 upper Mississippi Valley, is unknown here. 



155. Disadvantages. The most serious disadvantage of 

 California as a farming country is the frequency of droughts. 

 The necessity of irrigation over a large part of the State im- 

 poses a heavy burden on the farmer, equal generally to two 

 dollars an acre, annually; and although this expenditure is 

 more than repaid in the increased yield, yet many of the farm- 

 ers cannot afford to make the advance. Without irrigation, 

 there is no proper rotation of crops, and the soil is exhausted 

 by the cultivation of the same grain for many successive years. 

 Rotation is impossible on the greater part of the land, because 

 its dry ness will not permit the growth of roots or common 

 grasses. The soil is too dry for maize, potatoes, turnips, clo- 

 ver, alfalfa or lucerne, and timothy or herd's grass. Peas and 

 beans yield well in only a few localities. In consequence of 

 the dryness of the summers, our farming is confined chiefly 

 to wheat and barley, which are produced in surplus, and are 

 governed in prices by the distant markets to which we must 

 send them at our expense. 



Ploughing commences with the first heavy rain, but the 

 farmer may lose much time in waiting for it to come. The 

 heat and drought of summer and autumn bake the ground, 

 and render it too hard for the plough ; so the sooner the rains 

 come, after the first of October, the more convenient for hLrn,, 

 and the more work he can do. The rain must be sufficient to 



