AGRICULTURE. 157 
the places where the water runs in winter. The only trees 
growing away from the watercourses are oaks, which are 
usually found in groves, and almost invariably without under- 
growth. 
In the Sacramento valley there are about two hundred 
square miles, or one hundred and twenty-eight thousand acres, 
of tule-land, most of it above high tide, and covered by water 
only in times of flood. Very little of it has been drained or 
cultivated, and therefore we do not know its value. All the 
tule-land is covered five or six feet deep with water in times 
of flood. 
The northern part of the San Joaquin valley is much like 
the southern part of the Sacramento valley. When the San 
Joaquin River approaches within fifty miles of Suisun Bay, it 
divides into three channels, which are separated from one an- 
other by islands of low tule-land. In times of high flood, the 
river spreads out and covers a space fifteen or twenty miles 
wide. There is less gravel and clay but more sand in the San 
Joaquin valley than in the Sacramento valley; the soil is drier, 
and contains more of alkaline substances, and the vegetation 
is more scanty. From Pacheco’s Pass across to Firebaugh’s 
Ferry, a distance of about fifty miles, there is not a tree, and 
in the autumn the country looks like a desert. At Fresno 
City the soil is nearly a pure sand, and the river at low water 
is not more than six or eight feet below the surface of the 
plain. From the bend of the San Joaquin River, southward, 
a district sixty miles wide by one hundred and fifty long, most 
of the soil is a barren sand, in many places covered with an 
alkaline efflorescence. 
The country about Kern River is very desolate, and be- 
tween that river and the Tejon Pass is a desert plain, covered 
with a scanty and useless vegetation. East of Tulare Lake, 
however, there is some rich soil, particularly in the “ Four- 
Creek country,” where the Cahuilla River, issuing from the 
mountains, divides into half'a dozen streams, which spread out 
over a space twelve miles wide, and then unite again, filling a 
