382 



RELATIVE STERILITY AND PRODUCTIVENESS. 



hills upon the ocean, is blessed with a soil of singular fertility, a 

 fine, dry atmosphere, and a soft, delicious climate. It is wooded 

 with majestic trees, covered with rich grasses, brilliant with an end- 

 less variety of flowers, and produces profusely the fruits of the 

 temperate and tropical zones. 



South of Point Concepcion the climate and general appearance of 

 the country are changed. From that point the coast bends almost 

 directly east; the face of the country obtains a more southern expo- 

 sure, and is sheltered by ranges of low mountains or hills from the 

 bleak violence of north-west storms. The climate accordingly is 

 more genial, and fosters a richer variety of productions than is 

 found on the northern coasts. 



The valleys parallel with the coast range, as well as those which 

 extend eastwardly in all directions among the hills towards the 

 great plain of the Sacramento, are of unsurpassed fertility. Their 

 soil is a deep, black alluvian, and so porous that it remains perfectly 

 unbroken by gullies, notwithstanding the great quantity of water 

 which falls into it during the wet season. The productiveness of 

 " California," says Fremont in his Memoir on that region, published 

 in 1848, "is greatly modified by the structure of the country, and 

 under this aspect may be considered in three divisions — the south- 

 ern^ below Point Concepcion and the Santa Barbara mountain, 

 about latitude 35°; the northern, from Cape Mendocino, latitude 

 41°, to the Oregon boundary; and the middle, including the bay 

 and basin of San Francisco and the coast between Point Concep- 

 cion and Cape Mendocino. Of these three divisions the rainy sea- 

 son is longest and heaviest in the north, and lightest in the south. 

 Vegetation is governed accordingly — coming with the rains — de- 

 caying where they fail. Summer and winter, in our sense of the 

 terms, are not applicable to this part of the country. It is not heat 

 and cold, but wet and dry, which mark the seasons, and the winter 

 months, instead of killing vegetation, revive it. The dry season 

 makes a period of consecutive drought, the only winter in the veg- 

 etation of this country, which can hardly be said at any time to 

 cease. In forests, where the soil is sheltered, in low lands of 

 streams and hilly country, where the ground remains moist, grass 

 continues constantly green and flowers bloom in all months of the 

 year. 



"In the southern half of the country the long summer drought 

 has rendered irrigation necessary, and the experience of the mis- 

 sions, in their prosperous day, has shown that, in California, as 

 elsewhere, the dryest plains are made productive, and the heaviest 



