368 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



specific for the bite of a rattlesnake. California has no indig- 

 enous elms, hickory, beech, birch, persimmon, mulberry, 

 sassafras, locust, catalpa, or magnolia trees. 



294. Nutritious Herbage. Of indigenous nutritious 

 grasses, there are a number in the State. The wild oats, 

 though not a grass, may be mentioned under this head. It 

 resembles the cultivated oats so nearly that there has been 

 some doubt whether they are not identical ; but the opinion 

 among botanists is that they are distinct species. The wild 

 oat, in the year 1835, was found only south of the Bay of 

 San Francisco; but about that time, when the white men 

 crossed frequently from the southern to the northern side of 

 the bay, the oat was sown in a natural way by horses and cat- 

 tie, and it spread rapidly over the Sacramento Valley and the 

 coast region. It grew very luxuriantly, and in some places 

 surpassed in the height, size, and abundance of stalks, any 

 field of cultivated oats which I have ever seen. It is said 

 that in some localities the oat-stalks were so high that men 

 sitting erect on horseback could not see each Bother at a dis- 

 tance of ten feet. The soil and climate were evidently very 

 favorable to it. Daring the last six or eight years, the wild 

 oats have been eaten down so closely by cattle, that in many 

 places they have been killed out. They are propagated from 

 year to year, not by the roots, but by the seeds, many of 

 which fall into cracks into the earth, where they lie in safety 

 until the rains co*me, when the ground closes up, and the grain 

 sprouts. The earth cracks in the summer in many parts of 

 the State ; and in places where the wild oats grow, the posi- 

 tion of the cracks of one year may be traced the next season 

 by the position of the stalks of the grain. 



The wild oat grows on hill and plain, and furnishes a large 

 part of the wild pasture of the State. It is wholesome, nutri- 

 tious, and palatable for cattle. Much of it is cut for hay. 

 The amount of grain which it furnishes is small in proportion 

 to the quantity of straw, and it is never threshed. 



