26 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



is large and increasing. Its central delta region leads 

 in all truck crops and field vegetables except lima 

 beans and sugar-beets, although for the latter it has 

 immense capacity and excellent adaptation. The 

 Great Valley raises nearly all the rice and its south- 

 erly extensions, both the San Joaquin and the Im- 

 perial valleys, produce all the rapidly increasing cot- 

 ton crop. The diversity and the producing capacity 

 of the interior valley region of the State are beyond 

 description and estimate. 



The Mountain and Plateau region. 



It has been found by observation during many 

 years that what are known as valley conditions pre- 

 vail to an elevation of about fifteen hundred feet over 

 the rolling region known as the foothills, which are 

 the steps up to the high ranges. Above this eleva- 

 tion winter temperatures fall lower, rainfall increases, 

 snow flurries begin, and thence upward mountain 

 valleys and plateaux are found at different levels to 

 six thousand feet, which is about the top of Cali- 

 fornia's agricultural lands, and above four thousand 

 feet such lands are used principally for summer pas- 

 turage. This mountain region has a winter like that 

 of the eastern states with precipitation of rain and. 

 snow ample to cause great rivers to flow down the 

 west side of the Sierra and give the State its invalu- 

 able water supply for power and irrigation. In the 

 valleys among the great snow mountains there are 

 farming districts of considerable present production 

 and great future promise. The most marked charac- 



