AGRICULTURE. 181 
the principal grass grown in the state, since it is peculiarly 
fitted to thrive in a climate and soil so dry as ours. 
§ 141. Zobacco, Cotton, Rice.—California produces tobac- 
co of a fine quality, but the amount grown is small; and the 
experience of its cultivation is too brief to furnish much infor- 
mation. It requires a moist soil, and most of the attempts to 
cultivate it in dry places in the Sacramento valley and in the 
vicinity of Los Angeles have failed. The best crops have been 
grown near the coast, north of San Pablo Bay and about the 
head of Suisun Bay. The tobacco-plant has been converted 
into a perennial at San Francisco; one specimen of it growing 
up eight or ten feet high, like a tree. 
A little cotton of a good quality has been grown, but I think 
its cultivation can never be extensive. The cotton states have 
three times as much rain as California, and I presume that 
only our moistest lands could produce a good crop of it— 
such, for instance, as the tulelands in the valley of the San 
Joaquin. 
The question whether rice can be cultivated in the tule-lands 
has been much discussed, but is not yet ‘decided, though it is 
the general opinion that some of the tule-lands. will produce 
large and profitable crops. 
§ 142. Hop.—The hop grows luxuriantly and produces abun- 
dantly in California ; and indeed there is good reason to doubt 
whether any country has a climate and soil more favorable to 
it than ours. We have no heavy dews or showers in summer 
to wash off the dust which contains the strength of the flow- 
ers, or to cover the plant with blight. The failures of crops, 
from these causes, so frequent in England and the Atlantic 
states, would never occur here. Not only is the crop certain, 
but it can be cured here with more ease and in better condi- 
tion than in other countries. The moisture of the air in Eng- 
land compels the hop-growers to dry the flowers in the sun or 
in kilns; and if a rain fall upon them while drying, they are 
ruined: and they are injured by both the sun and kiln-drying. 
In California, they may be dried in the open air, under sheds; 
