18 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



freezing and no snow except in the mountains, Cali- 

 fornia is an ideal place for a man who wishes to keep 

 busy in the open air during nearly all the year, and to 

 secure maximum results from annual activity of men, 

 animals and machinery. 



It is obviously beyond the scope of this writing to 

 undertake presentation of detailed data of California 

 climatology or to discuss its salubrity from the points 

 of view of physical comfort or escape from invalid- 

 ism. The reader may draw inferences for himself 

 from the somewhat new arrangement of meteorologi- 

 cal data (set forth in Appendix B) which draws rec- 

 ords from end to end and from side to side of the 

 State collocating them to show variations due to 

 longitude, elevation, distance from the ocean, and 

 the like. The arrangement also emphasizes the char- 

 acteristics of the several regional subdivisions of 

 California indicated in Plate III. Considering the 

 geographical area included and the long periods of 

 time covered, the tabulation in Appendix B comprises 

 a summary of volumes of meteorology and by citing 

 extremes as well as means of temperature for each 

 month of the year, indicates with great definiteness 

 what may reasonably be expected at any season in 

 any region which the records represent. The data 

 thus set forth, in connection with the descriptions of 

 phases of rural life and the different requirements 

 of various plants included in crop production, which 

 will be undertaken in later chapters, can readily be 

 translated into terms of significance to other phases 

 of human life and industry. 



