The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1901-06-27
Wheat Raised By Machine.
How the Grain is Cultivated on Big California
Farms.

How the Grain is Cultivated on Big California
Farms.
Cultivation of wheat in California
will long continue to be one of the
greatest sources of wealth to that
surprisingly fertile State IN spite of ITS
long continued seasons of drought.
Lands devoted to wheat in Cali
fornia include those reclaimed from
the beds of rivers by embankments,
which have been under water for ages
and never produced anything but rank
growths OF vegetation. Once protected
from overflows, the crops OF fruit,
vegetables or cereals grown upon these
lands are surprising. Instances of 40
sacks OF wheat, averaging 1870 pounds,
as the product per acre of reclaimed
farm, multiply, and knowing their
exceeding fertility and witnessing the
rank, powerful growths of the stocl;
before harvest time, such a yield
ceases to astonish. Wheat grown
upon these soils, however, does not
rank in quality with the best
Lands which are protected from
overflows by artificial levees, of which
there are hundreds of thousands Of
acres along the banks of the Sacra-
mento and San Joaqin rivers, are the
finest wheat lands of the State, and
the most valuable. Lying low, they
are independent Of the drouth, all
their natural fertility has been aug
mented by deposits brought down by
overilows before the levees were con-
structed. The Yalo basin ofthe Sacra.
mento River IN time of harvest is a
sight beyond description. The wide,
level valley, stretching on both sides
OF the river, is sea of golden vege.
tation. The Great Glenn ranch of
6o,ooo acres, all in wheat, is situated
here. The high lands, located above
the influence of river floods and de-
pendent upon rainfall for moisture,
extend in these valleys to where the
foot hills begin. They are of vast ex-
tent, and produce the finest, deepest,
and weightiest wheat grown in the
world. They average, perhaps, six
sacks of $50 pounds each per acre.
To California merchants, says the
Scientific Amer1can, is due the dis.
tinction of instituting steam for hand
labor in manipulating cereals in the
fields. Huge hfty-horse power traction
engines, with driving wheels sixty
inches in diameter and flanges sixty
inches IN width, drawing over the fields
sixteen ten-inch plows, four six.foo:
harrows, and press drill to match,
plowing, narrowing, and seeding from
forty-five to seventy-hve acres at one
operation each day, explains why the
vast crop of California, covering mil
lions OF acres, can be planted and
cultivated in a country where the sup
ply OF labor is not enough to plant a
crop one-tenth part as large. In the
harvest time, by the aid of one of
those enormous harvesters, whose
cutters are twenty-six feet wide, the
wheat is at once headed, threshed,
cleaned and sacked, ready for market,
the machine in one day gathering
the crop of seventy-fve acres.
To observe one Of these enormous
machines travelling over the uneven
surface Of these fields, crossing wide
bitches, or crawling along the side
hills, surmounting every obstacle with
the most perfect ease, and automatic
ally gathering in the wide ripened
grain, sacked ready for market, is a
sight of the rarest description.
These mechanical prodigies are
adapted only for countries like Cali
fornia, with seasons of wet and dry,
we'll defined, where cereals ripened by
the hot sun easily fall from the husk.
For the moist lands of the great North
these harvesters have not proved an
entire success.