189 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
season of the year, and horses not employed are usually turned 
out into the open plain. The hay of Ohio is cut in cultivated 
fields, from tame grasses; that of California is made of wild 
oats and indigenous grasses, which are grown in the open 
valleys. ; 
The haying season comes about the first of May. The old 
adage, that “you must make hay while the sun shines,” does 
not apply in California, for here the sun shines all the time, 
and the haymaker has ordinarily no fear of rain. It happened, 
however, in 1860, that a considerable amount of hay was spoilt 
by the late rains in June. The whole process of haymaking in 
California is managed by machinery. It is cut with the ma- 
chine-mower, raked together with horse-rakes into cocks or 
windrows, and finally the cocks are hauled together on hay- 
sleds which load themselves by slipping under the cocks. The 
hay is not turned by hand, nor is the field raked by hand. 
The hand must be used, however, when wagons are to be 
loaded or stacks built. Hay is usually cured in the cock or 
windrow. It is not necessary to turn it by hand, as is cus- 
tomary in the Eastern states. One turning and one day in the 
sun are enough, when it is raked together and is ready for the 
stack or the mow. 
In Ohio, a good field of timothy will yield four tons of hay 
to the acre; in California, the wild oat stands so thick in afew 
places as to yield as much, but the average crop is not over a 
ton to the acre. The principal hay counties of the state are— 
San Joaquin, which in 1860 made 37,000 tons; Santa Clara 
and Yolo, 18,000 each; Sonoma, 17,000; Yuba, 14,000; Sac- 
ramento, 13,000; and Contra Costa, 11,000. Very little maize- 
fodder is used in the state. 
Tame grasses occupy, at the present time, a very small place 
in the agriculture of California. Not one-tenth of the farms 
in the state have an acre of-cultivated pasture; and even in 
the largest farms, containing from three hundred to a thou 
sand acres under plough, it is rare to find a field of timothy, 
clover, or alfalfa. The last-mentioned will probably become 
