32 CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW THEM 



resulting from the decomposit ; of granite, but they are as a rule 

 inferior to the red foot-hill so..s, which are more clayey, and will 

 be mentioned among the clay loams later. 



The soils prevailing in the valley of southern California, from 

 Redlands at its head to Los Angeles at its opening out toward the 

 sea, consist chiefly of granitic sand, which at some points on the 

 slopes forms the soils exclusively, but everywhere constitutes a 

 prominent ingredient of the valley and mesa lands. These mesa 

 lands are conspicuous for their orange-red tint, and the red sandy 

 loam of which they are composed, to depths varying from ten to 

 as much as eighty feet, is evidently the choice soil for orange 

 culture. It is manifest that at some remote epoch it filled the 

 entire valley. Of the middle portion much has been washed away, 

 but islands of it form red-land tracts of greater or less extent all 

 over the region, traversed by and more or less commingled with, 

 the granitic wash from the valleys and canyons of the Sierra 

 Madre. The latter frequently consists largely of gravel, and were 

 it not for the luxuriant natural vegetation borne by these gravel 

 beds, few would have thought of devoting them to the costly 

 experiment of orange planting, which, nevertheless, has proved 

 eminently successful even on these unpromising-looking masses 

 of debris. In the upper valley (San Bernardino Valley proper) the 

 red loam is conspicuous, and gives its name to the flourishing city 

 and citrus district of Redlands, on the terminal slope ; but the 

 heavy flow of water from the upper canyons, notably from that 

 of the Santa Ana River, has scoured it out of the valley itself, and 

 left there, at least on the northern portion, gray and blackish 

 granitic loams of great depth and productiveness, underlaid, and 

 therefore underdrained, by the enormous gravel beds that hold the 

 artesian water of this favored region. 



The reddish mesa soils prevail through the smaller Southern 

 California valleys as well, and are similar in character, as they are 

 derived from similar geological formations. 



Where the surface descends gradually to the seashore, and not 

 in bluffs, there are, as in Los Angeles and Orange counties, coast 

 flats several miles in width, where the soil is a dark-colored sandy 

 loam, glistening with scales of mica, and more or less affected 

 with alkali in the lower portions. Similar soils are found in tracts 

 of greater or less extent up the coast as far as Santa Barbara at 

 least. As a rule, these seashore lands are very productive, but 

 fruits for them must be chosen with reference to their low level 

 and exposure to coast influences. 



The light loams of the so-called desert region of Southern Cali- 

 fornia are not inferior in productive capacity to some of the best 

 soils of the great valley, which it greatly resembles, save in the 

 scarcity of humus, or vegetable matter. Only a detailed survey, 

 however, can determine the tracts having an arable soil, as against 



