to Needles, respectively. The lakes of California are not important as to navigation. Tulare Lake, receiving the drainage of the Kern, Kaweah and Kings rivers, is 700 square miles in area, but only 40 feet deep. In very high water its overflow reaches the San Joaquin; but ordinarily its income of waters is cared for by evaporation. Lake Tahoe in the extreme north, at an elevation of 6,200 feet, is 20 miles long and 1,500 feet deep, and famous for the purity of its waters, the beauty of its scenery and its trout. It is the largest of the glacial lakes, of which there are a great number in the Sierra, mostly at altitudes exceeding the highest mountain summits east of Colorado. The lower-lying lakes of the State are mostly without outlet, and of various degrees of brackishness, culminating in the "sink" of the Amargosa River nearly 200 feet below sea-level on the eastern side of the range, where evaporation has left vast alkaline deposits, now of great commercial value.

Geology. The main axis of the Sierra Nevada is of granite throughout. To the north there are some metamorphic peaks, and many summits are capped with volcanic materials. Mount Shasta in the far north is an extinct volcano (14,470 feet). So also is Lassen's Peak (10,577 feet), of late years sometimes emitting smoke. This granite core is flanked by a very heavy mass of slaty, metamorphic rocks, mostly argillaceous, chloritic and talcose slates, -constituting the great auriferous belt of the Sierra. The Coast Range is made up almost entirely of cretaceous and tertiary marines, chiefly sandstones and bituminous shales. It is in this belt that the recent vast development of petroleum has been made.

Besides the vast reaches of alluvial soils in the lower valleys, which were first selected for agriculture, an enormous area of disintegrated granite gravels along the foothills and first acclivities has been found the most productive soil in the State, particularly with reference to valuable crops. These great gravel beds, which seem to the farmer from the black "bottoms" of Ohio the most unpromising of soils, are in reality rich in all the elements of plant food. The vast majority of the valuable orchards, particularly of southern California, are planted upon this granitic detritus; and without exception the finest oranges and other citrus fruits come from this soil. The relative aridity of California, long supposed to be a curse, is now known to be a two-fold blessing. Exhaustive analyses, comparative with every portion of the Union, show these gravels to average much richer in chemical constituents than soils leached out by excessive rainfall. Furthermore, the fact that precipitation is not invariably sufficient to ensure crops has com✩ pelled irrigation, which does ensure them; so that farmers in the arid lands have much greater crop-certainty than those of regions with most abundant rainfall.

Agriculture. In no item of its history has California been more unlike other States than in development and sequences of agriculture. The first (and for 60 years commercially chief) industry was cattle derived from herds introduced from Mexico by Viceroy Galvez, 1769, and chief wealth of the Mission establishments and Spanish colonists. It was a generation after the American occupation before agricul

ture was seriously undertaken; and for another term of years it was chiefly a gigantic seasonal "gamble with the weather» in dry-farming of cereals. The characteristic features of agriculture up to about 1870 were enormous holdings, reckoned by at least tens of thousands of acres, with the single crop (almost exclusively wheat and barley) and purchase of every other article of necessity or luxury. On areas of hundreds of square miles apiece there were an individual or corporate owner, a single crop, a few hundred hirelings at the height of the season and their temporary quarters. A few of these enormous ranchos still survive; and Miller and Lux still farm about 1,000,000 acres, with 20,000 acres in a single field. But within a generation the typical character of agriculture in California has radically changed. The greatest record drought (1864) which not only destroyed grain but hundreds of thousands of cattle (60,000 head being sold that year in Santa Barbara at 372c. per head), exclusion of the Chinese, who had been the chief reliance for labor on the great ranchos, the fall in wheat, and other factors, led to the breaking up of these gigantic domains. slight idea of the change may be had from the census fact that in 1850 the average size of all California farms was 4,456.6 acres; and in 1910, 318 acres. Along with this great dry-farm gambling-for such it was sheep became a leading industry in the State, particularly in southern California. But the enormous increase in value of land has reduced sheep to a valuation of $17,000,000. The city of Pasadena (Pop. 40,000) was a sheep pasture in 1870.

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Within about 30 years- - that is, since 1885, - the general character of California farming has changed to small holdings, occupied not by tenants but by American owners, with families, with diversified crops, and obliged to purchase only the luxuries of life; with intensive methods and certainty (by irrigation) of crops. California has now more than onefourth of all the irrigators in the United States. The average size of irrigated farms is in southern California 214 acres; in rest of State about 82 acres. The typical California farm under the modern régime is perhaps 10 acres; irrigated either by its own pumping plant or from a community ditch, and yielding an annual income of not less than $200 per acre and sometimes $900.

Perhaps the greatest single factor in bringing about this structural change was the orange. In 1862 there were 25,000 orange trees in the State, all seedlings, and deriving from Mexico, where the fruit was introduced by the Spaniards nearly three and a half centuries earlier. In 1873 two seedless orange trees from Brazil were sent from the Department of Agriculture in Washington to Riverside, Cal. From these two parent trees has sprung the modern orange industry of California - and practically of the United States; as Florida, the only other orange State in the Union, yields only one box of oranges to California's two. lions of trees grafted from their "buds" are now bearing in this State, and the hereditary fruit, seedless and delicious, leads the American market. This crop, highly remunerative, and practically continuous (shipments being made every month in the year) has been for these

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reasons, and æsthetic ones, a large attraction to high-class immigration, and an important factor in shaping agricultural methods. For development of the industry, see statistics below.

In deciduous fruits, total production, shipments fresh, canned and dried, California has within a generation come to lead the Union; as it leads in all tropical fruits.

Beet Sugar.-California was the first successful grower of sugar beets, and has by far the largest factories. In 1909 it was second to Colorado in the value of its beet-sugar output ($11,981,000), or 25 per cent of the total. The beet sugar industry of the United States originated at Alvarado, Alvarado County, Cal. In 1916 the output of its 11 beet-sugar factories was 472,770,100 pounds of sugar; value, $30,800,000. In 1917 the number of beet-sugar factories and acreage planted to beets had increased in one year over 26 per cent. California beets average 7 per cent higher in sugar than those of other States. The effect of the great war and government control on agriculture in California (as elsewhere) is not yet to be prophesied; particularly as to beet sugar, wheat, beans and live-stock. In 1917 the production of sugar beets was 2,636,800,000 pounds. Within a decade California has become the greatest producer of beans (navy and frijol, but principally lima). In 1916 the yield of beans was 5,047,082 bushels, valued at $19,144,000. In 1917 there were 8,035,000 bushels at double the value per bushel. This industry is practically confined to Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties. Within less than a decade, also, cotton has come to count in the agricultural resources of California. Imperial County, organized 1907 (a recently reclaimed desert, often compared with the valley of the Nile), now produces annually 65,000 bales of cotton (40 per cent Durango or longstaple) worth $9,380,000, besides a great variety of other vegetable products. It lies along the Colorado River, just north of the Mexican line. Ten years ago a desert, it has now a population of 50,000, with several small cities and tens of thousands of acres under cultivation by a huge irrigating system from the river.

With modern refrigerator freight cars, a vast quantity not only of citrus and deciduous fruits, but even of fresh vegetables, is now shipped from California, 2,000 to 3,000 miles to the Eastern States, including some 800 carloads of celery annually from one small town. Strawberries are in the Los Angeles market every month of the year, but are shipped (as are blackberries, raspberries, loganberries, etc.) to Arizona and New Mexico only in summer; as are also the famous canteloupes and watermelons. California is foremost producer of the most extraordinary of forage plants, the Arabian-Spanish-Mexican alfalfa. This produces, under irrigation, about one ton per acre for each of four to eight cuttings per annum. 1917 it sold at $26 per ton. In 1910 there were 487,134 acres planted to alfalfa; in 1916, 862,534 acres.

In

Up to 1808 the hop industry of the United States was all in Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts. Soon New York, with better soil, had a monopoly; then Wisconsin and Michigan became important hop-growers. In 1916 five counties of California produced more hops than all the rest of the United States. In 1916 the live-stock in the State consisted of 468,000 horses, valued at $45,396,000; 70,000 mules, milch valued at $8,120,000; 591,000 COWS, valued at $39,597,000; 1,636,000 other cattle, valued at $62,332,000; 2,524,000 sheep, valued at $16,911,000; 994,000 hogs, valued at $10,039,000; and poultry valued at $19,000,000, making a total value of $201,395,000.

In the same year the total value of the State's dairy products amounted to $40,310,105, consisting of 70,030,174 pounds of butter, worth $19,181,264; 7,745,124 pounds of cheese, worth $1,203,592; and other produce valued at $19,925,249.

The sensational achievements of Luther Burbank in hybridizing fruits- for instance, the creation of a large plum without any pit whatever are already world-famous. Almost as

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remarkable results have been reached in floriculture. Seeds and bulbs are raised on a great scale; carnations, calla lilies and other flowers being grown outdoors by the 10-acre field. large proportion of the flower seed of the United States is grown in California, and it supplies most of the mustard of the nation. The total area of California farms is now over 46,000 square miles, considerably exceeding the entire area of States of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maryland. The State was eleventh in the Union in per capita value of farm products ($88) and fifth in value of products of farm ($1,816 as compared with Ohio, $929) in 1900. California had in 1910, 87,670 farms; total value of farm property, $1,448,560,000; total value of farm products 1899, $131,690,606. Total acreage in farms, 27,883,000 acres, of which 11,380,000 acres The are improved. farmed decreased 3 per cent, 1900 to 1910. In 1850 there were 872 farms; in 1860, 18,716; in 1870, 23,724. The development of farming is briefly indicated as follows to 1910-the latest Federal figures available. The great increase since 1910 cannot be officially stated.

area

87,670 27,883,000 $1,448,560,000 72,542 28,828,951 52,894 21,427,293

796,527,955 $131,690,606

35,934 16,593,742

772,065,570

305,999,443

87,033,290

59,721,425

The largest number of farms was in Los Angeles County (6,577); three other counties

had over 3,000 farms each; Santa Clara, 3,995; Sonoma, 3,676; and Fresno, 3,290. Of all farms, 84,692 were farmed by whites; the rest by Indians, Chinese, negroes, Japanese.

Dairy cows had increased nearly one hundred-fold since 1850, in 1910 being 464,000. Horses (1910), 462,000; mules, 68,000; sheep, 2,325,000; swine, 749,000; of other cattle there were 1,155,000. Total value of domestic animals 1910, $119,487,452 — including poultry and bees, $4,566,629; animals sold and slaughtered, $15,754,985; poultry and eggs, $6,356,746; wool, $1,707,088. Sheep and wool decreased steadily, from 1879, with the great increase in value of lands for farming.

From 1850 to 1900 the population increased sixteen-fold; number of farms over eightyfold. California was one of the few States in 1900 that in 30 years added more to its agricultural than to its other population.

Irrigation and Horticulture.- Development of the new and characteristic agricultural era in California is outlined by these statistics from the last available census (1910).

government experimental stations in Arizona. In 1916 the Coachella Valley produced $65,000 of dates. The acreage has vastly increased since. There are over 7,000 bee-keepers in the State, owning more than 600,000 colonies. The production of honey in 1916 was 11,100,000 pounds, valued at $642,000.

California was first (1769), and is still practically the only State to produce the olive and its oil. Thirty-eight counties now grow the olive, though only in half a dozen is it important. There are about a million bearing trees in the State, and half as many not yet bearing. The California "ripe" olive has become of great commercial importance; while the "dehydrated" seems destined to become even more popular. The annual production of oil (1916) is 1,000,000 gallons; packed olives, 18,000,000 gallons.

Of dried fruits the output is larger than in any other State.

Apples.. Apricots. Figs.. Peaches.

Prunes.

Raisins

Of the 72,542 farms in the State, 25,675 or 35.4 per cent were irrigated, an increase of 44 per cent in 10 years; the number of irrigators increased in the same term 87 per cent, showing the great subdivision of the lands nearly twice as many people living on the same area. Total cost of construction of all irrigating systems, $19,181,610; so the irrigated crop of 1899 alone paid nearly $14,000,000 in excess of total cost of works. Los Angeles County led by far in number of irrigators (4,066); only Fresno (2,459) having one-half as many. In number of acres Fresno County was far in the lead, with 283,737 acres; Kern next with 112,533 and Merced, 111,330. Of the total 1,445,872 acres irrigated in 1910 (last available figures), 1,293,608 were irrigated from streams. There were 2,361 artesian wells and 10,924 pumped. By 1914, the pumping-plants for irrigation had increased to 24,589. More than half the flowing artesian wells in the United States were in California; and a large number of farms were served by electric power pumped from underground wells.

Of deciduous orchard trees there were in the State, in 1916: Apples, 61,752 acres; apricots, 96,716 acres; cherries, 13,484 acres; figs, 10,872 acres; peaches, 107,971 acres; pears, 40,324 acres; plums, 22,805 acres; others, 19,000 acres; a total of 372,924 acres planted to deciduous orchard trees. In 1916 the shipments of fresh deciduous fruit from 50 counties of northern California were 17,890 carloads; from the seven counties of southern California 450 carloads, having a total value of $29,500,000.

In 1916 the citrus fruits (orange, lemon and grape-fruit, nearly all from southern California), were 192,607 acres; shipments reached a total of 45,083 carloads, valued at $41,348,000. Dates were recently introduced from the

155,400 237,100

Almonds and walnuts are not "commercially≫ produced elsewhere in the United States. Both crops have more than quadrupled in a decade. In 1916 the yield was, for California, 3,400 tons of almonds and 12,800 tons of walnuts.

California produces 95 per cent of the United States almond crop; and over four times the nation's importation of this nut. The aguacate, avocado or alligator pear (from Guatemala) is of recent introduction, but there are already over 35,000 trees in southern California; and the ordinary income is $200 per tree the fruits selling as rarities at 50 cents to $1.25 each. In the last census year the number of plum and prune trees was greater than the total number of all deciduous orchard trees 10 years before. The number of apricot trees had more than doubled in the decade.

Total number of semi-tropical fruit trees had increased from 1,809,161 to 8,996,459 in the decade. Of the latter number 62.8 per cent were orange trees; 17 per cent olives; 16.6 per cent lemons; 2.1 per cent figs. Other trees included were guavas, kaki, limes, pineapples, pomelos, etc. The counties of San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Riverside and Orange contained more than four-fifths of the orange trees. The number for the State increased nearly five times in 10 years. Orange and lemon shipments increased about eight-fold in the decade. San Diego and Los Angeles counties contained 'more than half the lemon trees of the State, the number being more than 18 times as great as 10 years before. There were 5,648,714 orange; 1,493,113 lemon; 1,530,164 olive trees in the State.

Strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, loganberries and other small fruits are valued at about $2,000,000. Fifty-two of the 57 counties raise grapes. California is the principal wineproducer of the Union, yielding more than onehalf the total product.