AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES 151 



production is vastly greater, if profit be assured. 



Perhaps the most interesting fact about the minor 

 grains of California is that they are so small in pro- 

 duction and value. Oats, which are of good standing 

 in most other states and countries, are of only about 

 as much value as grain sorghums which are them- 

 selves too small for enumeration in states where oats 

 are great. This strange reversal of attainments is 

 due to the fact that oats for grain are largely re- 

 stricted to the coast counties and to the high moun- 

 tain valleys of the interior and are practically ex- 

 cluded from the great areas where wheat and barley 

 are grown. Sorghum grains are excluded from both 

 the coast and the mountain valleys and are grown 

 in the wheat and barley region of the great valleys, 

 but in the summer instead of the winter. This gives 

 sorghums command of a much larger productive 

 area in the use of which in the dry season, however, 

 they are considerably dependent on irrigation. Oats 

 are also reduced in importance by the fact that even 

 in regions well suited to them, they are likely to 

 be displaced by barley which serves the same stock- 

 feeding purposes and is easier to grow and surer to 

 come to profitable production. If, however, one 

 considers the use of oats not for the grain but for 

 the hay product, it has higher standing and much 

 greater value than the usual consideration of value 

 would accord to them. On the whole, the reason 

 why oats are so small in California is because bar- 

 ley is so great. 



Of much less importance and value than oats is 



