The age-herald., 1898-11-17
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WHEAT FIELD OF e5,ooo ACRES.
It Would Take One Man Thirty Years
 to Flow and Plant Such Field.

From the San Francisco Call.
 What is said to be the largest single wheat field in California is now being planted to the grain that makes the staff of life. It covers over 25,00O acres, or forty square miles.
 This enormous field of grain is located on the banks of the San Joaquin river, near the town of Clovis, in Madeira county. The field is part in Fresno county and part in Madeira county.
 Clovis Cole is the man who is putting in this vast acreage, and he has undertaken one of the largest jobs that any man has yet done in California.
 While it is true that larger acreages of wheat have been planted by certain ranchers in the state, there seems to be no record of an exact parallel to the present case. On the Miller & Lux ranch. in kern county. 50 900 acres were planted one year, but the fields were scattered about in dlt- ferent places. They were really series or fields, located wherever there was fertile spot. Few of the fields were over 2,OO0 acres and in many instances there would be half a mile of bare land between them The acreage planted could not be called a wheat field of 50.o0O acres any more than all the wheat fields in the state could be classed under one head
 1 The Clovis field however, is an ideal wheat field. It is almost as flat as floor, with a gentle slope toward the river. The outer lines of the field make 1t almost perfect square. Each side is little over six miles, and if the day is clear every part of the field can be seen from any other part. It will be a beautiful sight worth Seeing when all the grain is up and waves gently in the breezes of springtirne
 There are no roads through the CLOVIS wheat field. It is to be one solid stretch or grain, and every square foot of land is to be utilized.
 Flowing and planting began in the big wheat field about the middle of last July and will hardly be completed for the next two months at least. But the grain will all mature at about the same time. Then wl-4 come the herculean task of harvesting it.
 To get an idea of the enormous size of this great wheat field, let us imagine that it is close to San Francisco. If one end Of it one mile wide touched on Market street. the rest of the field would stretch one mile wide almost to San Jose. This same wheat field is over four times the size of the im- proved portion of San Francisco. The whole city and county of San Francisco, including all the outlying districts, is about the same size.
 With the big improved machinery it does not look as though there was much work spent on planting and harvesting the field.
  crop, if such thing were possible, how long would 1t take him?
 Suppose the field was one mile wide and forty miles long, and the one man had double gang blow cutting furrow twenty four inches wide. He would start at corner of the field in San Francisco and blow south toward San Jose, distance of forty miles. Then he would come back and cut another furrow to San Francisco, mak- ing eighty miles for the round trip
 This amount of work would only be a tiny scratch four feet wide along one sioe of the forty-mile field, and the process would have to be repeated at least 1900 times, making a total distance of about 505 900 miles.
 Suppose that the plowman worked at the rate of twenty miles a day. To get over the 105,00O miles would take 5,250 days. To plant would take about the same time, making a total of 10,500 days, or nearly thirty years. It would be like spending a lifetime and the distance travelled would be equivalent to going around the world four times. And all in one California wheat field.
 To accomplish the necessary amount of owner of the Clovis wheat field has to em- ploy over 200 men, over 00O horses, and several tons of big machinery. The men are working early and late now, and if the whole acreage is planted by January and sufficient quantity of rain falls there will be such crop of wheat as has never been heard of, for the land is good land and the seed is good seed. Then will the bread eaters of the world give thanks for the existence of the largest wheat field in Call fornia