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Farmers, however, are now beginning to learn the folly of consuming what, in seasons of protracted drought, and during the long and sometimes cold rains of winter, might save their stock from destruction, and are abandoning the burning of their straw, collecting it into vast piles and stacks, and in some instances erecting sheds over it. Here, secure from rain or from the scorching heat of summer, cattle will collect and feed freely. As the pasturage range is circumscribed by fencing and cultivation, the necessity of preserving every spear of fodder will press itself upon the intelligent farmer until the folly of straw-burning will be entirely abandoned.

Storms are very rare on the Pacific coast, and such hurricanes as sweep over the Atlantic States and portions of Europe are unknown. Occasionally a stiff northwest breeze is felt along the coast line, and the usually tranquil waters of the deep Pacific lash with great fury upon the coast. But the interior of the whole country, through each month of the year, is calm. Along the Coast Range, fir trees, three hundred feet in height, toss their lofty heads without the loss of a limb, half-decayed trees stand upon their frail pedestals, and tenements of light boards are unmoved. Fitful gusts, gales, thunder, and hail-storms are unknown.

During the spring and summer months occasional claps of thunder may be heard in the Sierra range; but at San Francisco and throughout the body of the State thunder is not heard nor lightning seen more than once in each three or four years, and then but in their feeblest forms.

In the southeastern portion of the State, where vast alkaline and sandy deserts stretch for leagues, what is

termed sand storms interrupt the traveller and fill the air with clouds of impenetrable dust. These storms are of but short duration, but their violence strikes terror to man and beast; and when the traveller is overtaken by one of these storms, which obscures the sun with volumes of dust, blinds the eyes, and cuts the cheeks with flying sand and gravel, his progress is impossible: all former signs of roads are obliterated, and the only alternative is to come to a halt and with blanket, coat, or shawl wrap head, face, and mouth of man and beast to prevent suffocation, and lie still until the fury of the gale is spent.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Agriculture Manufactures-Commerce-First agriculture in America-Increase of agriculture in California-Decline of miningDecay of mining towns-Area of California-Agricultural landsSpanish grants-Vast estates-How to obtain public lands→→→ School lands-Who may secure the public lands-Grain, fruit, and vegetable growing-Yield of grain per acre-HarvestingWild oats-Wild mustard-Hops-Potatoes-Tobacco-Large vegetable growths-Strawberries-Tropical fruits-Oranges, figs, and nuts-The grape-Fertility of the Sierras-Tea cultureBeet sugar-Cotton and rice-Silk culture.

FROM the earliest history of the human race down to the present time no pursuit or occupation has so materially aided in developing the physical, mental, and moral condition of man as that of agriculture. Commerce has brought with it adventure, deception, opulence, and power: so it has induced craft, dissipation, voluptuousness, and vice. Manufactures have stimulated invention, introduced new and useful commodities, and, in some instances, relieved man from oppressive physical labor: they have also crowded and huddled people together in the unwholesome atmosphere of cities and factories, and enfeebled the race in the pursuit of the tinselled display and allurements of wealth. Art has beautified the abodes of men, spread the broad sails of commerce, and lent a charm to life: so, too, it has induced frivolity, and, when uncontrolled, has fearfully pandered to the vices of the times. Science has gauged the celestial and terrestrial bodies, measured the depths of oceans, the heights of mountains, and the degrees of heat and cold; analyzed the earth, separated and purified metals, traversed continents, subdued the

elements, and encircled the globe: but its ever-craving necessities and demands multiply the wants and cares of man, ever pressing new claims and multiplying the wants and labors of the race. All these combined, or in their separate influences, have built and fostered our large cities-commerce, manufacture, art, and scienceand our large cities are the nurseries of disease, dissipation, idleness, immorality, crime, folly, fashion, and sin, whose corrupting currents fill the prisons, asylums, and hospitals of the land, and swell from the crowded centres of vice until they trench upon the peaceful home of the agriculturalist, lashing their pestilential foam from dock, garret, cellar, saloon, prison, asylum, and brothel, up to the green fields and producing fountains of the physical supply of the race-the fields of the farmer; and as the physical existence of the population of both country and city depends entirely upon the agricultural regions, so the morality, virtue, and patriotism of the nation rely upon the pure fountains of the rural districts to supply the fast advancing national, social, moral, and physical mortality of the crowded cities of the land.

The ever-changing conditions of man and the vicissitudes of nations, sudden revulsions in trade, and the calamities of war, have fully demonstrated that the surest foundation of individual and national existence and prosperity is agriculture. Without it all else must cease. Man may subsist for a brief period by the chase, but the game and the hunter alike disappear before the invading ploughshare, as is forcibly illustrated in the decline of the aborigines of America.

On the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth, their scanty stores of provisions were quite exhausted, and the forests seemed to afford but little hope of a

supply of game during the approaching winter or the coming spring; and, had it not been for the feeble efforts in agriculture practised by the Indians before the arrival of the Mayflower, the whole colony would have perished.

The historian Moore, in describing the efforts of the Pilgrims to penetrate the forest in 1620, says:

"Here they found a cellar carefully lined with bark, and covered with a heap of sand, in which about four bushels of seed-corn in ears were well secured. After reasoning on the morality of the action, they took as much of the corn as they could carry, intending, when they should find the owners, to pay them their satisfaction. On the third day they arrived, weary and welcome, where the ship lay, and delivered their corn into the common store. The company resolved to keep it for seed, and pay the natives the full value when they should have opportunity. . . The ground was frozen and covered with snow, but the cellars were known by heaps of sand, and the frozen earth was penetrated with their swords till they gathered corn to the amount of ten bushels. This fortunate supply, with a quantity of beans preserved in the same manner, they took on the same conditions as before. . . Six months after, they paid the owners to their satisfaction. The acquisition of this corn they always regarded as a peculiar favor from Divine Providence, without which the colony could not have subsisted."

Lord Chatham, in speaking of the noble pursuit of agriculture, said:

"Trade increases the wealth and glory of a country; but its real strength and stamina are to be looked for among the cultivators of the land. In their simplicity of life is found the simpleness of virtue, the integrity of courage and freedom. These true, genuine souls of the earth are invincible, and they surround and hem in the mercantile bodies, even if these bodies, which supposition I totally disclaim, could be supposed disaffected to the cause of liberty."

From the period in which Adam was tending a garden, Cain tilling a farm, Abel feeding his flocks, and

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