226 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



In the plumpness and size of the berry, our wheat compares 

 well with that of Europe and the Atlantic States, but can per- 

 haps claim no decided superiority. Comparing the different 

 districts of the State with one another on this point, Suscol 

 probably "deserves the first place, and Napa the next. In the 

 Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, the wheat is often shriv- 

 eled by hot winds, which blow for three or four successive 

 days while the grain is in the milk, and seem to blast it. 

 Great differences are observed, however, according to the 

 season. 



The weight of Californian wheat is usually sixty pounds per 

 bushel, seldom less frequently sixty-two, and sometimes 

 sixty-five ; thus entitling our State to a high position in that 

 respect. 



160. Yield. The average yield of Californian wheat- 

 fields is from twenty to twenty-five bushels per acre, which is 

 about thirty-three per cent, more than in the States on the At- 

 lantic slope. An old Spanish book of records, of the Mission 

 of San Diego, states that in 1778 twelve fanegas (a fanega 

 is about two bushels) of wheat were sown, and three hundred 

 and fifty fanegas were harvested an increase of thirty-fold. 

 The next year, sixteen fanegas were sown, and the yield was 

 one hundred and sixty fanegas. In 1780, twenty-four fanegas 

 were sown, and eight hundred harvested an increase of 

 thirty-three-fold. San Diego is far inferior for wheat-growing 

 to the coast valleys about San Francisco Bay ; and previous 

 to the coming of the Americans the ground was not ploughed, 

 but only scratched, and the limb of a tree was used for a 

 harrow. 



Colton, in his " Three Years in California, " (page 442) 

 states that while the priests still had sole control of the missions 

 and mission-lands previous to 1833, the mayordomom steward 

 of the Mission of San Jose, harvested 4,300 fanegas of wheat 

 from 40 fanegas of seed ; and at the next harvest he had a 

 volunteer crop of 2,600 fanegas on the same land. The first 



