AGRICULTURE. 159 
proportion of the land is cultivated in Napa valley than in any 
other part of the state, and the cultivation is more thorough, 
Suisun valley has a rich, sandy loam, good both for barley and 
wheat. Waea valley, a small yale near Suisun, has a very warm, 
tertile soil, and is shut in by the hills from the wind. It will 
be an excellent place for fruit, and every thing will ripen early* 
there. 
South of the straits of Carquinez is Diablo valley, which 
has an excellent soil for wheat and barley. So also has San 
Ramon valley, but the fruit has been badly nipped by frost 
during the last three or four years. Amador valley has a soil 
of rich sand at the sides and strong loam in the centre, all of 
it moist and fertile. Livermore valley, which may be consid- 
ered as the eastern half of Amador, is a bed of gravel, of little 
value for tillage. Suhol valley has a rich, sandy loam. The 
Alameda plain, on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay, from 
San Pablo to San José, is one of the richest agricultural dis- 
tricts in the state; the soil is fertile—in some places clay, in 
others sand. The soil on the western side of the bay is similar 
in character, but there is not so much of it. The lower part of 
Santa Clara valley has a fertile, black, sandless loam, changing 
to sand and then to gravel, which last is abundant toward the 
head of the valley, where very little of the land is tilled. The 
principal fruit district in the state is in the vicinity of San José. 
The plain east of Monterey Bay, in Santa Cruz county, has a 
fertile’soil, and a climate peculiarly favorable to beans; excel- 
lent crops of wheat and barley are also grown here. The soil 
of Pajaro vallcy is one of the richest and strongest in the state, 
and its crops of wheat and potatoes are unsurpassed. The Sa- 
linas has a rich, sandy loam in the lower part of its valley and 
near the river, but the sides and head of the vale contain much 
gravel; the climate and soil are very dry, and only a small por- 
tion of the Jand is cultivated. The Cuyama, Santa Inez, and 
Santa Clara River valleys, are sandy and dry, and have but 
hittle tiliage; the Jast-pamed valley has a soil that is in places 
almost pure sand, too thin to secure a covering of grass in a 
