forests for the production of wattle bark for tanning, camphor forests for gum camphor, various eucalypts for hardwood as the native timber is practically all soft, but no considerable enterprise has resulted. This is chiefly because possible profit is necessarily remote and because the labor and water which such undertakings would require have always been too high priced to warrant entrance upon them. The only exception to such caution and conservatism was the boom in eucalyptus worked up by land speculators about 1905, in the course of which considerable losses were incurred by investors who allowed themselves to be persuaded that eucalypts required neither good land nor moisture supply to make profitable growth. In this way the eucalypts, which are, when properly placed, the most profitable and satisfactory timber trees ever introduced into California, were afflicted with a bad name through no fault of their own.

A concrete relation of the mountain forests to the foothill and valley development and prosperity lies in the service of these vast forested areas to the creation of power and supply of water for irrigation of rural, and for domestic and industrial uses of urban communities, in the valleys and along the coast regions where gravity transports it. If one will follow the outlines of the topography of California, as given in Chapter I and Plate I, it will immediately be suggested that California is singularly a unit in natural water storage and stream flow. The snow falls on the forested mountains and the streams from its

melting thread the valleys to the ocean. Thus California, speaking generally, receives water from no other state nor gives water to any other. It is true that in the extreme north of California the Klamath River rises in Oregon, but makes only a short run therein; that the Truckee River escapes into Nevada, but the latter owns half the lake of which it is the outlet; and that the great Imperial Valley of southeast California ís irrigated from the Colorado River which is the boundary of the State in that quarter. With these exceptions California catches her own water and keeps it, excluding that which cannot be withheld from the ocean. Less will be lost in that direction as more is stored for various uses in the development of the State, and as the requirements of power, irrigation, domestic use and navigation are finally adjusted. It is of incalculable advantage that California owns her own catchment areas, and that her streams live their whole lives within her own geography. The condition that makes this advantage realizable lies in the forested areas which catch the snow and hold the water for prolonged outflow during the dry season. The maintenance of the forests and the prosecution of engineering works to supplement their beneficence by regulated distribution to the valley streams and irrigation systems will secure the California of coming centuries a density of population and an aggregate of production which will insure prosperity. The present generation is awake to its duty in this direction and all sessions of the legislature consider ways for discharging it.

MINES

Wholly apart from its relations to agriculture and agricultural people, some of which are indicated in Chapter IV, the California mining industry is great in its achievements, unique in its methods and varied in its products. Greatness and variety are demonstrated by the official outline of the products of 1920 (given in Appendix D) with a total valuation of $242,142,000. A few facts about the leading items in that statement are of popular interest and significant even in a book treating of rural affairs as showing the relations of California to other states and provinces in an industry often closely associated with agricultural development and a force therein.

California has justified the name "Golden State" by leading in gold production for the last seventytwo years, except for a few years when Colorado held temporary leadership. California has yielded $1,720,139,958 during seventy-two years, nearly one-half of all the gold produced in twenty-two states of the Union since records began in 1792. The geographical and topographical prevalence of gold in California is also of striking interest as shown by the following statements: 1

"California is still the leading gold producer among all the states of the Union and there is still a greater number of gold mines than in any other state.

1 History of California by Zoeth Skinner Eldredge, Vol. V, p. 200. Special article, "California Mining History," by Charles G. Yale.

Gold is being mined in thirty-one of the fifty-eight counties.

"Among the twenty-five gold mining states of the Union California has, as a gold-producing region, the distinction of holding the records on all counts. California has made by far the largest aggregate yield; the largest output in a single year; the highest annual average; the lead as a gold producer for the greatest consecutive number of years; the greatest number of varied branches of gold mining and the widest distribution of gold deposits.

"Gold is mined in the highest parts of the Sierra Nevada, the foothills, the valleys and on the beaches of the ocean. Even in the wastes of the Mojave and Colorado deserts are many productive gold mines. In one county there are gold mines being worked at elevations of 9000 to 13,500 feet and at places more than 200 feet below sea level. In another county from the opening of a vertical shaft at 1500 feet above sea level they are mining to a depth of 3896 feet, or 2394 feet below sea level."

The climate of California favors mining, as it does farming, with a whole year suitable for working in the open. Even in surface mining there is no unpropitious season, if water has been provided for the period of dry streams. The combination of mining and farming helps to keep some men busy all the year. Yale says:

"In some of the foothills and upper valley counties men work in their orange and olive orchards and