AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES 147 



Comment seems baffled by a product which in- 

 creased ten thousand fold in a decade. It is too sud- 

 den and too great to be either fully understood or ap- 

 preciated. Perhaps the most significant fact about 

 it is that rice added itself to the productions of Cali- 

 fornia without notable disturbance of any other prod- 

 uct, partly due to its using so much land which other 

 crops were retiring from. If rice-growing continues 

 to be profitable, the grain will assume mutually ad- 

 vantageous relations to other field crops because of 

 the rotation with them which conditions promise 

 to make imperative. Holding water upon the ground 

 all summer for the sake of the rice induces growth 

 also of other aquatic grasses and weeds which are at 

 enmity with the rice and the easiest way to destroy 

 them is to turn the land back to dry-farming for a year 

 or two, in the course of which such aquatic intruders 

 will disappear in the drought, or be sheep-grazed with 

 the stubble, following the early harvest of winter- 

 growing field crops. There are many other cultural 

 problems connected with the new industry under 

 climatic conditions somewhat different from those in 

 other rice-growing states, which are beyond the scope 

 of this writing. There are also problems touching 

 the types of rural life which it will engender or 

 promote, the solution of which cannot now be fore- 

 seen. It is clear enough, however, that such prob- 

 lems are impending. In 1920 there came autumn 

 rains which checked harvesting, a fall in price 

 which caused losses and the question arose as to 

 whether, because of its spectacular advancement and 



