harvested by a machine called the header, which passes 

 throuirh the field cuttinor ^i, swath fifteen feet wide, takins: 

 off the heads eight inches long, throwing them into a 

 wagon by its side, at the rate of an acre in less than an 

 hour. The crops are generally threshed by a steam ma- 

 chine brought into the field. This machine requires two 

 horses, two men, and two horse forks to feed it, and, we 

 were told, threshed 800 to 1000 bushels of wheat and 

 put in bags per day. These bags remain in the open field 

 piled up in rows, until taken away by teams to the rail- 

 road stations. We saw acres of bags piled up five bags 

 liigh, a^vaiting shipment. On many of the large farms 

 the ploughing is done by gang ploughs, six abreast, and 

 drawn by ten or twelve horses. A sower is attached to 

 the plough, and in this way nine or ten acres of grain 

 may be put in the ground in a day. Nothing surprises 

 the traveller more than the immense fields of wheat seen 

 on the sides of the railroad. Think of riding for hours 

 through fields of wheat whose breadth extends miles be- 

 yond your vision, and you will have some idea of the 

 golden harvest of those ocean-like plateaus of grain that 

 abound in California, and which already equal in value 

 the products of her mines. 



The supply of culinary vegetables, as seen in the mar- 

 kets of San Francisco and other cities, is very abundant 

 and of excellent quality. What surprises visitors from 

 the East is to find such articles as celery in the market all 

 summer. When we arrived, on the 20th of June, celery, 

 cauliflowers, melons, and marrow squashes of famous size 

 were on the stands in the market. With irrigation, crop 

 after crop can be obtained in varied succession, so that 

 you may find any thing you desire at any season. The 

 early vegetables begin to come in during the month of 

 February. Asparagus is cut from February to June. 

 One grower informed us he had six acres. The product 

 was about five tons to the acre, and was contracted for at 

 nine cents per pound. The size to which vegetables at- 

 tain is almost incredible. We were told of pumpkins 



