Warm Air and

Sunshine, this tree meant a semi-tropic climate, fig trees, and olive Fertile Soil. trees and waving palms. More orange trees have been growing since that tree at Bidwell's Bar was planted, but only in the past few years have people generally learned that the gold-bearing soil of the Sierra Nevada slopes, and the eastern slope of the Coast Range, of the rich fertile valleys of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin were capable of producing as many carloads of semi-tropic fruits as the transportation companies can haul to market.

The Great Sacramento

But the culture of oranges, fascinating as it is and meaning as it does the combination of winter sunshine, warm air and fertile soil, is only one feature of the longlatent possibilities of the great interior valley of California. It is with the upper section of this great region—the Sacramento Valley-that this chapter has to deal.

This valley of the Sacramento of California is an Valley empire with many principalities. Such a region in the Old World or in the New England and Middle States would have been long before this as populous as the valleys of the Loire, or the Housatonic, or Susquehanna The area of the valley proper is estimated at something. over 6,000 square miles with bordering foothill and and mountain region of nearly as much more. The counties directly tributary to this great northern valley, some of them mountainous, some of them foothills, all of them valley and mountain, except Sutter, which is entirely in the valley, are, starting from the north; Siskiyou, Shasta, Tehama, Glenn, Butte, Colusa, Sutter, Yuba, Yolo, Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, Nevada and Solano. The total exact area of these counties according to Surveyor-General's reports is 17,908,960 acres and is nearly equal to that of the State of Maine.

Figures and comparisons like these indicate the size of this attractive region, but more than figures that tell where there is room enough to grow are desired by the serious man who is looking for a home, and he may be assured at the outset that this vast valley country of the West possesses countless alluring advantages that should woo him westward to seek and find.

In the Path

way of the

In the first place it's California, and California means Nations. progress, development, the movement westward being in the world's view, in the pathway of the nations. Here is growth, here farms are becoming villages, villages becoming towns, towns becoming cities. Here is a healthful clime and a fertile well-watered soil. Through the center of the valley flows the Sacramento river, its headwaters near the base of Mt. Shasta, a snow-capped peak of Siskiyou county 14,440 feet high. The river flows southerly joining the San Joaquin, which flows through the great interior valley northerly, emptying into the Pacific at the Golden Gate. A number of tributaries running through smaller valleys, flowing from the Sierra Nevada offer fertility as well as opportunities for power development. Among these are the McCloud, the Pitt, Yuba, Feather and the American, besides countless creeks. An inexhaustible supply of water pours through these river channels, diverted at many points all along the way for irrigation, and at several points, notably at Folsom and Colgate, being harnessed for the development of electrical power.

like Spring

The rainfall in this region is abundant, as will be seen by reference to meteorological tables of the United States Weather Bureau elsewhere in this volume.

Rainy Season And right here, speaking of rainfall, it is well to comtime. bat the idea of the New England men that rainy season

means a perpetual drizzle from the first of November to the first of May. The rainy season of California is comparable to the springtime of New England. There are storms and a steady downpour of welcome rain, lasting sometimes three or four days, but the usual storm of California's winter rarely lasts longer than twenty-four hours; usually ten or twelve hours and often occurs at night. After a steady downpour the sun rises bright and warm, the air is pure and clear, wild flowers start into being before Christmas, new grass clothes the hillsides and the. man in the country who looks abroad on mornings like these feels glad that he is alive and glad that he is here, far from snow-storms and blizzards, alert and vigorous under

THE SACRAMENTO VALLEY

The

55

the smiling sun. In the great interior basin of California. the rainfall is heaviest on the west slope of the Sierras and increases steadily from south to north. The average rainfall of the Sacramento valley is about seventeen inches. Along the edge of the Sierra foothills it is about twenty-five inches, running to nearly thirty inches on the north, as will be seen by reference to tables given elsewhere. In the mountains at an altitude of two thousand feet and upward the rainfall amounts to from 50 to 60 inches annually. These figures are significant; they mean that the rainfall of the Sacramento watershed is sufficient to irrigate every acre of arable land in foothill and valley. They mean that the great level valley of the Sacramento, now sparsely settled and devoted to immense wheat farms, and the foothill lands, still covered with native growth, are destined to become the home of a vast population.

No Winter,

It may be that facts about climate seem a trifle over- Properly worked. The tables of temperature given elsewhere tell So-called. their own story. In this Sacramento valley as well as in most of California except in the mountain counties, there is no winter that can be properly so called in the understanding of people who live where the year has four seasons. Plowing in November, training roses on the side of the house on Thanksgiving Day; hyacinths, narcissus, heliotrope, and other plants of rare perfume, blossoming in open air; humming birds flitting in the honey-suckle, picking oranges November 1st, harvesting olives in January, almond trees showing their pink blossoms of rare beauty in February-these are some calendar wonders. And again, let it not be forgotten that California temperature is not a matter of latitude as elsewhere, but rather of elevation. Going north does not mean going to a colder climate—the mean annual temperatures of Redding, Shasta County, and Redlands, San Bernardino County, are nearly the same, yet Redding is nearly 800 miles north of Redlands, and this annual mean averages between sixtytwo and sixty-six degrees; highest temperature in both, 107°, lowest temperature known in both, 25°.

Remarkable
Open-Air

General N. P. Chipman, Supreme Court Commissioner of California, long a resident of the Sacramento Valley and a practical horticulturist and profound student, and acknowledged authority, says in a recent paper on the resources of California:

"In California our climate makes it possible to profitGardens. ably use every day in the year. We have no month when vegetation in some form is not growing. Our wonderful diversity of products gives constant employment in the field, garden and orchard, and in all lines of manufactures, the weather is always propitious. You may not believe

for

Health.

it, but I can take you to a property one hundred miles north of Sacramento, where you will find growing in the open, in one large orchard of 3000 acres,-apples, pears, cherries, prunes, plums, figs, oranges, lemons, almonds, raisins, apricots, olives, guavas, loquats, persimmons,— in short, every fruit to be found growing in Russia, France, Egypt, Greece, Spain, and in the entire Mediterranean basin. I doubt if a like expression of climatic possibilities can be found elsewhere on the globe.

"One other fact, and we may leave the matter of climate. California is a universal sanitarium. In the mountains and in the valleys everywhere, barring of course The Climate here and there local influences to the contrary, the climatic conditions promote improved health to all who come. Special conditions, more favorable, appear in different places, but generally all latitudes and all regions invigorate and build up the physical functions. Our great valleys lie parallel to our mountain ranges and the ocean, and residents find quick and easy change from one to the other; the people of the interior go to the coast or the mountains for a change, and the coast people go to the interior and mountains. A few hours bring this most delightful change."

But the fair conditions of the valley winter season do not mean excessive heat in mid-summer. True, the mercury does mount steadily upward, not infrequently leaving the one hundred mark behind, but the absence of humidity makes 105° in the heart of the Sacramento valley not so