The herald., 1897-03-26
CALIFORNIA AT ITS BEST

Eastern visitors who are now here
probably imagine they are seeing the
land at its best. So they are, in one
sense, for it is never more green than
now, and rarely is there a season with
better distribution of the rainfall. But
to see it at its very best they should
see it in the middle of summer after
months have passed with no rain.
Almost every one who sees California
only at this time thinks all this growth
ceases soon after the rains are over,
and that irrigation is then needed for
everything. 1t is a grand surprise 10
learn that the greater part of the coun-
try will, without any irrigation, produce
in most years a larger yield of almost
any summer crop, such as corn, beans.
potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins, turnips
or beets, than most any eastern state
will give on an ordinary rainfall. 1t is
hard to believe that on the moisture
stored in the ground now and retained
by cultivation only. crops of corn, on
which never a drop of water from any
source shall fall, will be grown equal to
the average of Kansas or Illinois. Yet
any one who waits will see it done, not
on a few hundred acres, but on tens of
thousands right around this city. AND
it will be done, not on wet land or land
kept moist by capillary attraction from
a sheet of water beneath, but on dry
upland dozens of feet from water.
Years ago we used to think we had
more variable results from the rainfall
than any other state. Since we have
learned to use the plow and the cult
vator it appears we have the steadiest
results. There is no state that for a
period of ten years can raise as much
on the rainfall alone as the greater part
Of this state. One reason is that too
much rain is practically unknown, while
in the east some wet seasons are as de-
structive as the dry ones. Our very dry
ones are no more frequent than they are
in most parts of the east. But California
has almost everywhere a porous sub
SOIL holding moisture with great tenac-
ity, while much of the east is under
laid with rock in which the moisture can
remain only in crevices. Here the sub
soil is a sponge, there it is too often a
mere filter quickly drained out Here
the moisture stored in the ground in n
very wet year plainly shows the effect in
short year following. If the ground is
well plowed this spring and left fallow
all summer it will raise in 1898 a good
crop on the smallest rainfall this coup-
try has recorded in forty years.
Instead of considering this California
brag, our eastern visitors who will study
it can learn how to get more out of their
own soils. There are thousands of
places east where imitation of our best
methods would quickly show a profit
over the additional cost. The winters
of short rainfall here that used TO be so
destructive to stock and bees, as well
as to the careless or ignorant farmer
who did not know how to plow, have
lost their terriers with the knowledge
we have gained in the last twenty years.
4 year ago the rain was less than ons-
third of the amount scientists tell us
is absolutely essential to a crop. Yet
we had fair crops. Where the ground
was we'll plowed the loss was nowhere
equal to that in the east in a growing
season where the rainfall is less thar
seven inches. Tha. means ruin almost
everywhere there. Even with careless