Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-08-27
THE DAILY RECORD-UNI0N.
AGRICULTURAL.
MATTER PREPARED SPECIALLY FOR
THE RECORD UNION"
Where the Wheat Comes From-Thoughts
Suggested by the Figures
Raising Planting Orchards.

Suggested by the Figures-sto
Raising Planting Orchards.
According to the Assessors reports to the
Surveyor the wheat product of this
State in 1879 was II, 451, ISL bushels. Ac-
cording to the same reports the four counties,
Butte, Colusa, Suffer and Yolo, produced
S,S67, 356 bushels, or little more than one
half the whole product of the State. While
we do not think these figures correct as to
the whole product, being too low by con-
siderable, we think they may be reasonably
correct as to the proportion OF the product
credited to the different sections of the State.
The product of the State last year was not
less than 80, 900 bushels, aid probably
exceeded 40 600, 600 bushels. If these four
counties gave the same proportional product
as in 1879 they produced from 10. 100000 to
2O,O0O.O00 bushels in 1881; or, taking
a medium figure and reducing bushels
to tons, and the product of these four
last year was about five hundred thousa nd
tons. Allowing very literally for home con-
sumption, seed etc., there was produced in
these four counties for export. say,
four hundred thousand tons of wheat
The first thought suggested by this large
amount of wheat to export is as to the cost of
transportation to the seaboard. Nature has
given to this section the Sacramento
river as a great highway on which to float
the crops of this section to market. This
highway has cost this section nothing
and it is free to all. The other, and only
other, source of transportation available to
the section is by railroad. The bed of the
road has cost large amount Of money, and
it belongs to individuals, or an association of
individuals Incorporated. None but this cor
poration have any right of use of the road.
1t is not, like the Sacramento river, free to
all, but if used its use must and should be
paid for, so as to keep up repairs and yield
an interest on the outlay in building and run
ming, satisfactory to the owners. Now we
are not exactly posted as to the difference in
the actual COST of transporting ton of wheat
from central point in the section embraced
In these four counties-say Yuba City-to
Underwater, by water and by rail. The diff
ference in the actual cost will probably be
between one and two dollars per ton
for our calculation we will take the
smaller sum-one dollar. That is, if
the actual cost of transporting ton of
wheat by rail from Yuba City to Port
Costa or Benicia be So per ton, then the
actual cost of transporting the same ton
by the Sacramento river would be 81.
Taking these premises to be correct, the
advantage of the Sacramento river to the
wheat-erowing interests of the four counties
named last year was 100000 four hundred
thousand tons being the amount of wheat
supposed to have been exported from them
This advantage comes to the wheat exported
only. The same advantage of 81 per ton &C.
crues to every other ton of produce exported
from these counties, and the same advan-
tage to every ton of supplies imported from
Underwater into these counties. Estimating
that all other products exported and supplies
imported equal the tonnage of the wheat ex-
ported, and we have an annual freight of
800, 900 tons upon which the Sacramento
river saves or enables the business of the
counties to save one dollar per ton, making
an annual saving of 100000. In ten
years, at this rate, the navigation
of the Sacramento river to these four
counties alone will be worth SS,000,000.
We have confined our thoughts to the four
counties named because they gave us definite
figures to work on. If we bring into the
calculations the other northern counties of
Placer Yuba, Tehama and Shasta, all of
which are SO located as to be like affected
with the question of navigation of the Sac
ramento river, and add portions of still more
northern counties whose products seek an
outlet through the same river, the value of
this river as a public highway, as nav
igable stream, becomes almost incalculable.
The next thought suggested by the above
amount of wheat exported from the four
counties named, is as to what amount of fer
tility the soil of those four counties has lost
by the export Of the 400, COO tons of wheat.
Soil is valuable for the amount of food for
man or beast it will prodIce. This product,
other things being equal. will be in proper
ton to the amount OF fertility contained in
the soil In producing the 400, 900 tons of
wheat in the four counties first named, the
farmers of those counties have taken from
the soil 400 600 to1s of ingredients necessary
70 the composition of that amount OF wheat.
In shipping this wheat out of these counties
they have deprived the soil Of just that
amount of fertility, and it is now worth just
the value Of that amount Of wheat less than
it was before for wheat-raising-that is, on
the supposition that nothing has been re-
turned to the soil to supply the place Of the
ingredients extracted and shipped away,
Nature, it is true, in its efforts to keep up
an equilibrium, has returned something,
but the farmers have returned nothing,
absolutely nothing, to the soil from
which they have taken so much.
Under this treatment the question arises how
long will these counties continue to produce
wheat to export at profit? viii it take ten
or twenty years to bring the product below a
paying pointg This is a pertinent question
to every wheat grower in the State. The
history of wheat-growing in every country
in the world where it has been grown ex-
tensiveiy, and no return made, has been a
history of exhausting the soil and constant
decrease in the average yield per acre. As
the tide of immigration has swept over the
United States from the Atlantic to the west
it has, by too constant cropping OF the soil to
wheat, left behind it a country in which
wheat culture is the least profitable occupa-
ton of the farmer. 1t is only by bring
ing under cultivation;new land, by extending
its cultivation over virgin soils, that the de-
mand OF the world for wheat is supplied.
When the virgin soils of the world have been
exhausted, as they are being at very rapid
rate, where will the wheat for the world come
from Wheat Is the staff of life-ths
principal article OF food in all civilized coun-
tries. 1t seems to be in fact one Of the
chief factors in producing modern civiliza-
ton, and yet that same civilization is rapidly
depriving itself Of the means that sustains it.