The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1898-12-22
Forty Square Miles of Wheat.

| S''Si ~ "hS''' ISli III SdlliOI MA Is
now being planted to the grain that
makes the staff of life. 1t covers
over 25,Coo acres, or forty square
miles.
This enormous field of grain is
located OH the banks of the San
Joaquin River, near the tow of Clo-
Wis, i'll MADEIRA county. The field
is part i'll Fresno county and part
i'll MADEIRA county.
Clovis Cole is the man who is
putting i'll 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 acre
ages Of wheat have been planted by
certain ranchers III this State, there
seems to be no record of an exact
parallel to the present case. On the
Miller & Lux ranch, i'll Kern coun-
ty, $4,000 acres were planted one
year, but the fields were scattered
; about i'll different places. They
were really series of fields, located
wherever there was a fertile spot.
Few Of the fields were 1000 acres,
and i'll many instances there would
be half a mile OF bare land between
them. The acreage planted could
not be called a wheat field of co.
600 acres any more than all the
wheat fields in the State could be
classed under one head.
The Clovis field, however, is an
ideal wheat field. 1t is almost as
flat as floor, with a gentle slope
toward the river. The outer lines
of the field make it almost a 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. 1t will be a
beautiful sight worth seeing when
all the grain is up and waves gently
i'll the breezes Of springtime. There
are no roads through the Clovis
wheat field. 1t is to be one solid
stretch of grain, and every square
foot of land is to be utilized.
Ploughing and planting began in
the big wheat field about the mid
die of last July and will hardly be
completed before the next two
months at least. But the grain will
all mature at about the same time.
Then will come the herculean task
of harvesting it.
To get an idea of the enormous
size of this great wheat let us inn
agine that it is close to San Fran
cisco. 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 improved portion of
San Francisco. The whole city
and county of San Francisco, in
Guiding all the outlying district, 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. But sup
pose one man had to handle the
crop, if such were possible, how
long would it take him?
Suppose the field was one mile
wide and forty miles long, and the
one man had a double gang plough
cutting ftlrrow twcnty-four inches
wide. He would start at a corner
of the field in San Francisco and
plough south toward San Jose, a
distance of forty miles. Then he
would come back and cut another
furrow to San Francisco, making
eighty miles for the round trip.
This amount of work would only
be tiny scratch four feet wide
along one side of the forty-nile
field, and the process would have
to be repeated at least 5000 times,
making total distance of about
los, 900 miles.
Suppose that the ploughman
worked at the late of.twenty miles
day. To get over the Io5, 900
miles would take $3.50 days. To
plant would take about the same
time, making a total of. 10, 500
days, or nearly thirty years. 1t
would be like spending lifetime,
and the distance travelled would be
equivalent to going around the
world four times. And all in one
California wheat field.
The accomplish the necessary
amount of work within the time at
his disposal the owner Of the Clovis
wheat field has to employ over 200