able; cement manufacture on a large scale is pursued in all the chief divisions of the State; California petroleum prevalently has an asphaltum base and finishing materials are abundant from local sources.

Highways constructed as has been outlined and crossing the State at least twice from end to end and from side to side, have been in operation for several years and have demonstrated their swiftness, smoothness and service; California in 1920 stands third in per capita of motor vehicles in the country, and fifth in the United States in number of motor vehicles owned, only New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois having more. The actual number for California in February 1922 was 680,613.1 During the year ending February 1, 1921, the State collected $2,395,880.75 for motor vehicle licenses. As has been intimated there is a striking inter-relationship between the automobile and the good road in California experience.

Cemented highways and the automobile add greatly to the joys and diversions of rural life and cause farmers to indulge in the recreations and inspirations of outings in the forests and beside the streams of the mountains adjacent to all California valleys. The prevalence of such uplifting recreations among farmers as well as the freedom of their social intercourse and their constant conference in farm service may be inferred from the fact that California farmers as a class surpass all other classes in owner

1 Numbers of auto vehicles in California counties are given in Appendix F.

ship of motor vehicles. It was carefully calculated that of the 477,450 automobiles recorded by the State Motor Vehicle Department in 1919, 241,175 were owned in the open country and in communities of distinctly rural character. At a farmers' picnic on the University Farm in the Sacramento Valley in April 1920 there were 2,417 automobiles parked and counted. It was estimated from other data that there were 14,000 persons in attendance. Without automobile transportation from the farms of the valley, it is doubtful whether one-quarter of that number of persons would have participated.

The almost continuous traversing of the countryside by observers in automobiles is rapidly extending knowledge of the agricultural geography and topography of the State. Real estate dealers claim that they need to be more careful than formerly in their descriptions of farms for sale and the environments of them, because most parts of the country are so generally known that exaltation of a locality beyond its due is soon detected.

CHAPTER IX

GOVERNMENTAL WORK FOR COUNTRY
LIFE

IN state work for the promotion and protection or agriculture, California has provided broadly and generously for the last forty years. From the first this provision took the form of commissions provided by the legislature with executive authority and appropriations for each line of productive effort which presented its claims with sufficient force at the capitol. Thus state work for farming was the product of coöperative effort by farmers. The first undertaking in 1880 consisted of a special commission devoted to the promotion of viticulture, followed in 1881 for horticulture, especially for the suppression of insect pests and plant diseases. This work has been liberally and continuously supported ever since and developed into an effective system for the exclusion of trees and plants from states and countries infested by pests until protective policies long prevailing in California developed into a national exclusion act in 1919.

The State has also enacted laws by which the policies of its general executive commissions could be locally applied through the appointment by the supervisors of county commissioners to enforce ordi

nances conserving particular local producing industries in horticultural lines. The several commissions having charge of special branches of agriculture acted independently of each other, each maintaining its own executive outfit and defining its work, to whatever extent the laws and the appropriations enabled it to do so. They had the privilege of applying to the legislature for new laws and more money and usually secured both, if their clientele among producers was sufficiently insistent. Thus a considerable aggregate expenditure for agricultural service was attained and advocates of economy in the use of State money, thinking the same work could be obtained at less cost by reorganization, secured from the legislature of 1919 an act combining several previously existing agricultural commissions in a State Department of Agriculture in charge of a Director of Agriculture. This closed the careers of such commissions and entered on the solution of the problem of determining whether as good work can be done more cheaply by more concentrated organization. This new plan went into operation on July 22, 1919, by the appointment of G. H. Hecke as Director of Agriculture. Hecke was previously State Commissioner of Horticulture and he worked out the details of the reorganization. The legislature of 1921 continued the work by merging other special commissions with agricultural intent in the State Department of Agriculture and assigning others to the newly created executive departments with which their higher and more distinctive tech

nical aims and requirements naturally associated them. As it stands in 1922, the State undertakings for the advancement of agriculture and rural life, apart from the general provisions for the public welfare in which they share, may be scheduled as follows:

State Department of Agriculture-Invested with all the duties, powers, purposes, responsibilities and jurisdiction hitherto assigned by law to the state commissioner of horticulture, state board of horticultural examiners, state dairy bureau, state veterinarian, stallion registration board, state board of viticultural commissioners, board of citrus fruit shipments, cattle protection board, state superintendent of weights and measures, state market director and state market commission. The State Department of Agriculture is organized in five divisions, viz., plant industry, animal industry, agricultural chemistry, markets, weights and measures.

State Department of Public Works-highways, irrigation and drainage, land settlement.

State Department of Labor and Industrial Relations-workmen's compensation insurance and safety, immigration and housing, industrial welfare. State Department of Education-industrial training in primary and secondary schools.

State Forestry Commission-forestry and fire prevention.

State Fish and Game Commission-regulation of hunting and fishing.

Board of Regents of the University of California