90 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



made a stake at mining became farmers and others 

 who came to mine stayed to farm. Thus mining was 

 closely associated with farming, so closely that many 

 pioneers had a mine in a back-lot of their farms 

 .where they dug out and washed gravel when the 

 land was too wet to plow or plant, or they picked 

 gold out of outcropping rocks when the soil was too 

 dry to work. This division of individual effort 

 between the two industries has not yet been wholly 

 abandoned. The amount of money available for the 

 capitalization of side issues can be imagined from 

 the statistics of the gold product of the early years. 

 Another concrete contribution of mining to farm- 

 ing was the joint use of the foundries and shops 

 created to manufacture mining machinery. Probably 

 no farming state ever had such capable metal-working 

 outfits within its own borders to draw on for equip- 

 ment at its very beginning. As mining requirements 

 grew less, farming demands increased both in quantity 

 and variety. Practically the same course was also 

 taken by investments, made in early days for mining, 

 in storing and conveying water long distances in the 

 mountains and foothills. Many reservoirs and ditches 

 would have been abandoned as mining was either 

 worked out or was proscribed by law (because navi- 

 gable streams were being ruined by the debris from 

 gold washing) if a new and profitable market for 

 the water had not arisen in the irrigation of foothill 

 orchards and pasture fields. Thus investments for 

 the sake of mining became development agencies for 

 the promotion of farming. Speaking at the State 



