174 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
cleaned there before it can be ground. Our farmers, however, 
are gradually becoming more careful in cleaning their wheat. 
In the plumpness and size of the berry, our wheat compares 
well with that of Europe and the Atlantic states, but can per- 
haps claim no decided superiority. Comparing the different 
districts of the strte with one another on this point, Suscol 
probably deserves the first place, and Napa the next. In the 
Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, the wheat is often shriv- 
elled by hot winds, which blow for three or four successive days 
while the grain is in the milk, and seem to blast it.+ Great 
differences are observed, however, according to the season. 
The weight of Californian wheat is usually sixty pounds per 
bushel, seldom less—frequently sixty-two, and sometimes sixty- 
five; thus entitling our state to a high position in that respect. 
The average yield of Californian wheat-fields is from twenty 
to twenty-five bushels per acre, which is about thirty-three per 
cent. more than in the states on the Atlantic slope. An old 
Spanish book of records, of the mission of San Diego, states 
that, in 1778, twelve fanegas (a fanega is about two bushels) 
of wheat were sown, and three hundred and fifty fanegas were 
harvested—an increase of thirty-fold. The next year, sixteen 
fanegas were sown, and the yield was one hundred and sixty 
fanegas. In 1780, twenty-four fanegas were sown, and eight 
hundred harvested—an increase of thirty-three-fold. San Die- 
go is far inferior for wheat-growing to the coast valleys about 
San Francisco Bay; and previous to the coming of the Ameri- 
cans the ground was not ploughed, but only scratched, and the 
limb of a tree was used for a harrow. 
\_ viton, in his “ Three Years in California” (page 442), states 
that while the priests still had sole control of the missions and 
mission-lands, previous to 1833, the mayordomo or steward of 
the Mission of San José harvested 4,300 fanegas of wheat from 
40 fanegas of seed; and at the next harvest he had a volunteer 
crop of 2,600 fanegas on the same land. The first year, ac- 
cording to this report, the increase was 107-fold, and the next 
year 65-fold. At the Mission of Soledad, according to the 
