AGRICULTURE. 231 



this course pretty safe ; though it has happened, on one or two 

 occasions during the last ten years, that grain in the field has 

 been injured by September rains. The same land is cultivated 

 year after year in barley, without apparently exhausting the 

 land so much as wheat does. A field near Gilroy has pro- 

 duced a large crop of barley every year since 1853, with sow- 

 ings only every other year, and without irrigation; but when 

 the grain was ripe, hogs were turned in to harvest it, and they 

 enriched the soil while they fattened themselves. 



Barley crops of sixty bushels to the acre are not rare. In 

 1853, a field of one hundred acres, in the valley of the Pajaro, 

 produced ninety thousand bushels, and one acre of it yielded 

 one hundred and forty-nine bushels ! It was grown by J. B. 

 Hill ; was mentioned as undoubtedly true by the assessor of 

 Monterey County in his official report ; and a prize was granted 

 by an agricultural society for the crop. The field which took 

 the prize of the State Agricultural Society in 1859, yielded 

 sixty-seven bushels to the acre. The field was a large one, 

 and ten acres, (a fair sample of the whole) were measured. 

 The crop which takes that prize is not necessarily the largest 

 crop in the State, but only the largest among those offered for 

 competition. No doubt, many larger crops were harvested in 

 1857. In 1859, ninety bushels of Nepaul barley were grown 

 to the acre by Mr. Burrell, in Santa Cruz County, but in a 

 small field. Large amounts of volunteer barley are grown 

 every year, and the yield is often excellent. One case is re- 

 ported of a field in Yolo County, which produced five success- 

 ive volunteer crops of barley, the last and least crop amount- 

 ing to thirty bushels per acre ! 



163. Oats. The principal varieties of oats cultivated in 

 California are the Australian, English, Bare, Feather, Norway, 

 and Tucker. The Bare and Tucker oats thrive best on a heavy 

 soil ; the Feather oat prefers a sandy loam. The indigenous 

 wild oat of California is never cultivated ; for although it pro- 

 duces large and tall stalks, they do not contain so much weight, 



