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other lands, where summer showers supply moisture to the plant through surface roots, this practice answers; but, in California, the instinct of the plant makes its first and greatest effort in the formation of a grand pump-root, which it sends rapidly downward in the nearest direction to moisture, for safety to life in our long summer droughts. The plant cannot be taken from this first position without mutilating the pump-root, and it will not afterwards continue its course in the same direction as before; but, instead, it throws out, probably, several shoots in less favorable inclinations. It may be supposed that, on this account, the tree will be less able to sustain itself, especially in seasons of extraordinary trial. Agriculturists, from Europe, especially, are warned against adherence to their experiences abroad as infallible guides in a climate so entirely dissimilar. In nothing does this counsel apply so forcibly as in tree culture.

THE SIROCCO.

During nearly every summer, some spells of extraordinary heat occur in the interior and southern section of the State, with a burning wind from the north-usually limited to three days. The thermometer runs up to over one hundred degrees of Fahrenheit, and the hottest current courses near the ground. In 1859, such a sirocco passed through the nursery of Wilson Flint, at Sacramento, and destroyed thousands of young fruit trees by burning off a ring of bark close to the ground. It is an early hint to the horticulturist-warning him not. to remove the lower limbs and bare the stem to exposure in this climate; for, though the effect be not so visible on large trees, at the moment, it must injure them, and, by repetition, bring decay.

AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS.

Labor saving machinery is largely employed in California farming. Seeding, hay making, grain cutting and threshing machines are more used here than in any other country, in proportion to the crops. They cost the farmer double the prices of the Atlantic side, but the high price of farm labor necessitates their general use. We have as yet no steam ploughs, but in no country are they more wanted, nor is any soil better adapted to them, there being but few stones, while the enclosures are generally of large dimensions. The only drawback is the scarcity of fuel, but where the ploughman's wages are three dollars a day this expense can be afforded. The ploughing done is usually very shallow, an evil that the steam plough would correct, and bring back to original production all lands now showing a falling off; for, as a general rule, our soil is deep. The gang plough, which is superced

ing the single plough, consists of two to four ploughs set in one frame. Of all the ploughs sent from abroad scarcely any exactly suit, and for this reason the home made is increasing in favor. Now that wealth is accumulating among farmers, it may be expected that, as in England, they will associate together and soon have steam ploughs at every important center. This will give great expansion to cultivation by deeper and better dressing, and greatly increase the production of the present area.

Steam Ploughs.-In England they are not locomotive. The engine is fixed on a track at one end of the field and the gang plough is drawn back and forth by ropes and pulleys. It turns over twenty to thirty acres a day, and in perfect execution, surpasses the horse plough. If it could be locomotive it would do much more work. The climate of England is too moist for firm wheeling, and the land is also too undulent. In California it is different. If ploughing be done in summer the engine would always be sure of a hard bottom for wheeling. In our grain valleys the sweeps of land are long and level. Perhaps there might be difficulty in getting the plough through some of our toughest adobe soils in the season of their hardest baking, but then the ploughing time could be changed. In all other soils there would probably be no difficulty. There are in our valley lands no stones to give hindrance. For side-hill ploughing there would have to be special adaptation of machinery. Summer fallowing never can be extensively done with horses in our dry-baked soils, and unquestioned benefits must be lost unless steam comes to our aid, or irrigation be introduced to soften the ground. The steam plough and its follower would give us deeper tillage, finer pulverization, better seeding and covering, and it may be safely added, one third more harvest. This subject is ripe for notice. There are now being brought out some California inventions in the way of locomotive ploughs and dressers, and everything seems to promise their successful introduction here.

The California Land-dresser: a Steam Locomotive. The traction steam plough in common use in England has been alluded to as well as the adaptability of our lands to its use. All efforts to make a steam locomotive plough failed there. Rotary diggers have not succeeded, and it appears to be reserved for California to bring forth an entire new machinery; not to plough, but, still better, to dress the land-to make it as if it were spaded and finely raked, and to be operated by a locomotive steam engine.

Ploughing simply cuts a slice of land and turns it over without much breaking its compactness. The harrow scarifies the new surface

superficially and covers the seed imperfectly. Rolling makes smooth the top, but it also compacts the soil and lessens its permeability. The land-dresser does not slice and turn over, but it cuts up, tears to pieces, shakes the earth from all grass and weeds, and leaves the field one even sheet of finely pulverized earth, as if it had all been spaded and passed through a grinding mill. If seed be sown on the hard surface in advance, the land-dresser will cover it up completely and leave it in a soil so loose and so fine that the grain takes at once deep root and secures the greatest vigor of growth. In our climate this condition of the soil and of deep rooting, will enable the plant to thrive with less spring rain; and in this mode of covering, twenty per cent. more plants will be grown on an acre.

The land-dresser has had two public trials in adobe (stiff clay) soil never before opened, and the same was wet and covered with herbage; so that the principle was well tested. The California land-dresser may be described for popular comprehension as follows: The locomotive engine and frame were not made for the purpose, and this description is confined to what belongs exclusively to the machine itself; premising that there are in front two low and broad wheels, with a steering gear. Attached to the rear end of the car is a frame of wood into which are inserted four separated shafts, revolved by beveled cog-wheels, and each one in a direction opposite to its neighbor. In the bottom of each shaft are four horizontal arms; to the end of each is fixed perpendicularly four knives, each made like the coulter of an ordinary plough. There are two great wheels that operate the revolving shafts and bear up the rear of the car. They are each eight feet high and thirty-four inches face, giving in all five and two-thirds feet bearing on the land. The space between the wheels is required for the works of the machinery. The car goes forward one hundred feet a minute, and the coulter blades, penetrating the soil as the guage may limit it, revolve horizontally, making one hundred and forty revolutions a minute. The effect is exactly like so many augurs boring holes in a plank. In one minute a plank, twelve feet wide, say six inches thick, and one hundred feet long, may be conceived as turned into fine saw-dust, which occupies exactly the place where the plank was. There is this difference: the augur moves only on a fixed center, and cuts out circular slices. But the coulter knives are moving forward with great velocity, cutting an inch at a slice; every atom is cut up into powder, and every root is divested of its soil. It leaves behind it, if it is wet clay, a smooth bed of mud; it is evident that if dry, it would be a bed of fine, ashlike earth. Each set of coulter-knives cuts a circle of three feet, and

the four sets dress a width of twelve feet. The movement is very like a steam propeller whirling through the water. It scatters the earth in spray, as though it were water. Each circle cuts into the circle adjoining, so as to leave no ridge standing; and each circle revolves in a direction opposite to its neighbors, so that there is no tendency to cant towards one side. Ordinary field stones are tossed about, and do not interfere. To guard against a fracture of the knives by larger obstructions, there is mechanism which relieves the knives in such cases. This was not attached on the trials made, and one circle of knives was broken by a boulder.

The principle of the horizontal cutters has certainly proved correct, and the execution shows how greatly superior it is to ploughing. It only remains to be further proven by extended trials if the machine has any unlooked for defects which may lessen its value. The working is so simple that one cannot conceive of any difficulty, unless it may arise from the speed that is given-one hundred and forty revolutions a minute to the ground cutters. The solid earth is shaken, as it were, instantly into dust. Certainly, no machinery, or series of machines, before applied to the dressing of soil, ever produced work at all comparable to this. It is not yet known what weight of machinery will be found necessary-but five to six tons, probably. It is intended to move over undulating land, and on hill sides of certain gradients. It appears as if it would dress thirty to forty acres a day. Should its success prove complete, grain can be raised at less than half its present cost; and twenty per cent more yield is a moderate estimate. It will relieve the farmer of his hardest toil, and it will open a new era and brilliant future to agriculture as a profitable industry.

The inventors of the California Land Dresser are Messrs. Coffin & Standish, of Martinez. The probable cost may be $10,000 at the high rates current here. The land-dressing frame can be removed, and any other agricultural machinery attached; so that harvesting and threshing can be done also. It will be easy for farmers to associate in the purchase of such a machine, and readily arrive at the comparative cost with horse ploughing. But the greatest gain will be found in the refined work it does, and the recuperation of our overtasked and unmanured soils, by going deeper, and giving renewed vigor to the growth. As will be shown, in speaking of irrigation, soil so pulverized as not to pack hard in the season, will keep moist in summer by reason of the capillary conduction it keeps open for the ascent of the subterranean waters. In many seasons, like the drought of 1864, this would save the crop from destruction.

Ploughing is usually done here after the first full rains of November; but often it is interrupted by over-wet seasons. The land-dresser could do its work all summer, so that operations need not be hastened, and the benefit claimed for summer fallowing may be realized, if, indeed, this system of dressing will not supercede its benefits. It may be suggested that the steam power of the machine might be greatly diminished, and its liability to fracture lessened also, if the arms which carry the knives were shortened so as to cut a circle of one half the diameter.

IRRIGATION.

Except in a very small way, as in the arid plain of Los Angeles, and in Yolo county, there is no extended system of irrigation in this State. Cultivation is confined chiefly to places and to crops which do not need it. The various cereals mature so early in summer (June) that with a few showers in March, besides the usual rains from November to that month, the crop is secure. The weight of the crop is, however, determined in great measure by the later rains. Heretofore the practice has been in setting out trees and vines to employ summer irrigation for the first year or two, after which it is generally dispensed with. In cases where water has not been conveniently obtainable, this aid has been entirely dispensed with. There is, however, a vast expanse of steppe land lying east of the great valleys, and rising in plateaus towards the steeper hills of the mining districts, that are at present of small account, but which could be made valuable by irrigation. On these plains and rolling prairies the drought parches everything. Even drinking water lies at great depths, is scant, and of bad flavor. The soil is thin, yet every acre can be supplied with flowing water by a proper system.

California is well situated for a grand, economic, and thorough system of irrigation. The great snow-covered Nevadas, rising seven thousand feet above the plains, run nearly the length of the State, and command the whole western slope with the means of ample irrigation. Great lakes of supply lie on the high ranges, having fine depth, and snow remains there all summer, melting under a fervid sun. There is reason to believe also that there are much larger bodies of water preserved under ground than above. Sufficient water to inundate all the present cultivated fields and orchards is now drawn from these mountain sources for mining purposes, millions of dollars having been invested in large ditches, often hundreds of miles long. Their only use now is to desolate the land, to break down and wash away thousands of acres of rich soil annually to get the gold it contains.

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