The Dallas weekly herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1885, 1875-06-12
The California wheat Kancn.

Probably the wheat ranch Is tne best
present representative of coast.
With crop of this cereal reaching in
1872 the great figure of twenty-nine
million bushels, California outranks
all other wheat-growing states. 1t is,
fortunately, no longer prominently
the golden state, but the agricultural
as well, or, as Starr King happily de-
scribed it, "rhe beloved Benjamin OF
American states, whose autumn sack
is filled with grain, while the mouth of
il contains cup of gold" The first
thing that impresses one in this depart
ment is the multifarious and almost
humanity conscious machinery, which
gives one man dominion over so
many acIes, and has elevated
California in twelve years from
an arid waste to the first wheat-pro-
ducing state. Down in the San Joaquin
valley, there is ranch so vast that the
men start in the morning with their
gang-plows, travel on until noon, take
dinner at u midway station, then drive
on until the going down of the sun,
and return the day following. So i'm
mensely is one mans profitable owner
ship broadened by machines. True,
the plowing is only skin deep, and the
average yield per acre has already fall
ell off over five bushels in the state;
but who takes thought for the morrow?
Then in harvest, the field actually
swarms with machinery. AS the cum
brous header moves on, with its long
guillotine reaching far out into the
wheat to be decapitated, q wagon is
driven deXterously alongside to receive
the heads. Every header thus en-
ploys five men, three wagons, and
twelve horses. Sometimes three or four
headers are going at once, each with
its little army, and simultaneously in
the middle of the field a steam
thresher, with its greater army of men,
dark as mulattoes with tan and dust,
working with an amazing energy,
even running at their several tasks,
while the header wagons come and re-
turn on trot. Perhaps a spark from
the thresher ignites the standing
grain. The farmer leaps on reaper
and whips his horses to n gallop to cut
a swath around and arrest the progress
OF the confiagration. The wind
sweeps the billowy flames upon him; he
dismounts, slashes off the traces, be-
strides a horse, and gallops for life,
leaving the reaper to its fate. 1t might
as we'll be burned as to lie out doors all
winter. 1t makes ones head dizzy to
see how they do things in California.
The more careful farmerharvests his
grain with u reaper, and binds 1t into
sheaves. In the hot and dry interior
the straw Is too brittle to be bound by
day, so you shall sometimes see John
Chinaman binding wheat all night by
the light of the muon and the stars,
and sleeping by day in dirty tent or
underneath spreading oak, perfectly
secure from rain. The ranchman's
house is generally too small for this
sudden host of laborers, quite small
enough for himself and his family,
and the workmen sleep outdoors,
like Boaz, at the end of the heap of
corn, wrapped in their gray California
blankets. Usually the grain is sacked
and left in the open field for months
together, without fear of rain or
thieves. BY and by it accumulates
around the little country depots, corded
up In quarter-acres and half-acres. For
month after month immense trains OF
platform cars are rolling down TO the
bay with this gorge and plethora OF
wheat, and frequently the rainy season
begins before II Is all removed
l[Stepen Powers, IN June Atlantic,