the field and sweeps through miles and miles of bending grain, cutting
swaths as wide as a street, and harvesting, threshing, and leaving
a long trail of sacked wheat ready to ship on the cars. Thirty-six
horses draw the header, and five or six men are needed to attend to
this giant, who bites off the grain, shakes out the kernels, throws
them into sacks and sews them up, all in one breath, as you might say.
The harvesters work from daylight to dusk, and three-fourths of our
wheat crop is gathered in this way.
Much golden straw is left, besides that which the "headers" burn as
fuel, and farmers stack this straw for cattle to nibble at. The stock
feed in the stubble fields, too, and strange visitors also come
to these ranches to pick up the scattered grains of wheat. These
strangers are wild white geese, in such large flocks that when feeding
they look like snow patches on the ground. They eat so much that often
they cannot fly and may be knocked over with clubs. In the spring
these geese must be driven away by watchmen with shot-guns to keep
them from pulling up the young grain.
The largest single wheat-field in California is on the banks of the
San Joaquin River, in Madera County. This covers twenty-five thousand
acres and is almost as flat as a floor. It is nearly a perfect square
in shape, and each side of the square is a little over six miles long.
There are no roads through this solid stretch of grain. Two hundred
men, a thousand horses, and many big machines are needed to work this
wheat-field.
Some of the big harvesters that cut and thresh the wheat are drawn by
a traction-engine instead of horses. In running a fifty-horse-power
engine high-priced coal had to be burnt but now the coal grates are
replaced by petroleum burners, and crude coal-oil is the cheap fuel.
This does not make sparks to set the fields on fire like burning coal
or straw and so is safer to use.
On large ranches wheat can be grown for less than a cent a pound,
while it has brought two cents or double the money when sold. But
there are not always good crops, as the grain needs plenty of moisture
in the spring when rains are uncertain.
The wheat crop of the state has fallen off of late to less than half
the yield of earlier years, but the deep, rich valley soil still grows
grain enough to feed hungry people in Europe, Asia, and Africa,
as well as in our own Union. Great quantities are taken in large
four-masted ships to Liverpool, England, and there made into American
flour. Our own flour-mills turn out thousands of barrels of flour,
and this travels far, too. The first thing picked up in Manila after
Admiral Dewey's victory was a flour sack with a California mill mark.
It would need a long, long story to tell how far from home and into
what strange places the yellow kernels of California wheat sometimes
travel, or to picture the odd people who depend upon us for food.
ORCHARD, FARM, AND VINEYARD
Long ago the Mission Fathers taught the Indians to plant and to take
care of vines and fruit-trees. They built water-works to bring life to
the thirsty trees in the dry summers, and to grow oranges, limes,
and figs, as well as peaches, apricots, and apples. They trained
grape-vines over arbors and trellises round the Mission buildings, and
from the small, black grapes made wine. Olive trees and date-palms did
well at the southern settlements. But most of these orchards died when
the Mission Fathers were no longer allowed to make the Indians work
for the church property, though a few old palms and olive trees are
still standing.
During Mexican days each ranch owner raised enough grain or corn and
beans for his own family but planted no fruit, or but little, while
the Americans who came to seek gold thought farming a slow way of
making a living. People soon found out, however, that our fine climate
and rich soil made good crops almost certain, and there was such
demand for fruit and farm products that more and more acres were
cultivated each year.
Our leading industry now is farming and fruit-growing, and
California's delicious fresh or cured fruit is sent all over the
world. Large amounts of barley and hops are shipped from here to
Europe, and our state produces almost all the Lima beans used in the
country.
The citrus fruits, as oranges, lemons, and pomelos, or "grape-fruit,"
are called, grow in the seven southern counties, or in the foothills
on the western slope of the Sierras. The trees cannot endure frost and
must be irrigated in the summer. Orange trees are a pretty sight, with
their shining green leaves, white, sweet-smelling flowers, and the
green or golden fruit. About Christmas-time, when oranges ripen, both
blossoms and fruit may be picked from the same tree. Los Angeles and
Orange County grow most oranges, but San Diego is first in lemon
culture. Half a million trees in that county show the bright yellow
fruit and fragrant blossoms every month in the year. The other
southern counties also raise lemons by the car-load to send east, or
for your lemonade and lemon pies at home.
[Illustration: AN ORANGE TREE WITH FRUIT AND BLOSSOMS.]
[Illustration: PALMS OVER 100 YEARS OLD AT LOS ANGLES.]
There, too, the olive grows well, that little plum-shaped fruit you
usually see as a green, salt pickle on the table. The Mission Fathers
brought this tree first from Spain, where the poor people live upon
black bread and olives. Olives are picked while green and put in
a strong brine of salt and water to preserve them for eating. Dark
purple ripe olives are also very good prepared the same way. Did you
know that olive-oil is pressed out of ripe olives? The best oil comes
from the first crushing, and the pulp is afterwards heated, when a
second quality of oil is obtained. Olive trees grow very slowly, and
do not fruit for seven years after they are planted. But they live a
hundred years, and bear more olives every season.
The black or purple fig which grew in the old Mission gardens bears
fruit everywhere in the state. Either fresh and ripe, or pressed flat
and dried, it is delicious and healthful. White figs like those from
abroad have been raised the last few years, and it is hoped in time to
produce Smyrna figs equal to the imported.
While peach orchards blossom and bear fruit six months of the year in
the south, most of this pretty pink-cheeked fruit grows in the great
valleys, or along the Sacramento River. Pears also show their snowy
blossoms and yellow fruit in the valleys and farther north. The
Bartlett pear is sent to all the Eastern states in cold storage cars
kept cool by ice, and also to Europe.
The finest apricots are those of that wonderful southern country,
miles and miles of orchards lying round Fresno especially. Yet the
valleys and foot-hills produce plenty, and in the old mining counties
very choice fruit ripens. Apples like the high mountain valleys, where
they get a touch of frost in winter, though there is a cool section of
San Diego County where fine ones are raised. Cherries do well in the
middle and valley regions, the earliest coming from Vacaville, in
Solano County.
Grapes grow throughout the state, though the famous raisin vineyards,
where thousands of tons are dried every year, are around Fresno. Most
of the raisins are dried in the sun, but in one factory a hundred tons
of grapes may be dried at one time by steam. The raisins are seeded by
machinery, and packed in pretty boxes to send all over the coast, and
through the states, where once only foreign raisins were used. Many
vineyards in the southern part and middle of the state grow only wine
grapes, California wines, champagne, and brandy having a wide use.
Great quantities of fresh fruits are used in the state or sent away,
while the canneries put up immense amounts, also. Canned fruit reaches
many consumers, but it is expensive. Our cured or dried fruit, however
is so cheap and so good that millions of pounds are prepared every
year. Such fruit ripens on the tree and so keeps all its fine flavor.
It is then dried in the sunshine, which not only fits it for long
keeping but turns part of it to sugar. Apricots, peaches, pears, and
cherries are usually cut in halves or stoned before drying. Prunes are
first on the list of cured fruits, and they seem the best to use as
food. The ripe prunes are dipped into a boiling lye to make the skin
tender, then rinsed and spread in the sun a day or two. They are then
allowed to "sweat" to get a good color, are next dipped in boiling
water a minute or two, dried, and finally graded, a certain number to
the pound, and packed in boxes or sacks.
Several kinds of nuts grow well in the state. All the so-called
"English" walnuts, with their thin shells, are raised in the south,
Orange County furnishing half the amount we market. Peanuts and
almonds are a good crop there, also, though almond groves are in all
parts of the state. Both paper and thick-shelled almonds are usually
bleached, or whitened, with sulphur smoke to improve their color.
Santa Barbara and Ventura are the bean counties of the state, and send
Lima beans away by train-loads, while Orange County grows celery for
the Eastern market. Very high prices are received for this celery and
other vegetables sent from California during the winter season when
fields are covered with snow in the East.
And did you know that the state produces a great deal of sugar? Tons
and tons of sugar-beets are grown throughout the farming lands, and
harvested in September. When the juice of these crushed beets is
boiled and refined, it makes a sugar exactly like cane sugar and much
cheaper. One-fifth of the beet is sugar, it is said.
Even the dry, worthless mountain sides are valuable to the bee-keeper.
The bees make a delicious honey from the wild, white sage, which grows
where nothing else will live. This sage honey brings the very highest
price.
Oats are raised in the coast counties, and corn in the valleys, but
owing to cool nights and dry air the corn seldom makes a good crop.
Orange County, however, claims corn with stalks twenty feet high and
a hundred bushels to the acre. In the south, also, that wonderful
forage-plant, alfalfa, will produce six crops a year by irrigation and
give a ton or more to the acre at each cutting.
Along the upper Sacramento River stretch the great hop-fields full
of tall vines covered with light-green tassels. At hop-picking season
many families have a month's picnic, children and all working day
after day in the fields and pulling off the fragrant hops. Indians,
too, are among the best hop-pickers. The dried hops are bleached with
sulphur, baled, and in great quantities sent to Liverpool, where with
California barley they are used in brewing malt liquors.
An odd crop is mustard, and at Lompoc, in Santa Barbara County, enough
for the whole country is grown. Both brown and yellow mustard is
cultivated, and the little seeds, almost as fine as gunpowder, are
sold to spice-mills and pickle-factories.
Whole farms are taken up with the production of flower-seeds or bulbs,
with acres and acres of calla-lilies, roses, carnations, and violets.
The tall pampas-grass, with its long feathery plumes, gives a
profitable crop. Indeed, one can scarcely name a fruit, flower, or
tree that will not thrive and grow to perfection in our mild climate
and rich soil.
THE STORY OF THE NAVEL ORANGE
Who has not enjoyed a juicy navel orange, while wondering at its
peculiar shape and lack of troublesome seeds? Yet few people know that
this particular variety has brought millions of dollars into our state
and made orange growing our third greatest industry.
Read this story of the seedless orange, this "golden apple of
California," which was first cultivated by Luther Tibbets, of
Riverside, and learn how Southern California has profited by its navel
orange crops.
Nearly thirty years ago Mr. Tibbets came from New York to this state
and took up free government land near what is now the beautiful city
of Riverside. He was one of the half-dozen pioneer fruit-growers
of that region, and had noticed at the San Gabriel Mission how well
orange trees grew there. His wife and daughter waited in Washington,
D.C., until a home should be ready here for them, and they often sent
Mr. Tibbets plants and seeds from the Department of Agriculture. To
this Department and its gardens in Washington, many curious plants
are forwarded from other countries for growing and experiment in the
United States. New kinds of grain or fruits are carefully cultivated
and watched by the Department, and from it farmers can always get
seeds or cuttings to try on their own farms.
Mrs. Tibbets often visited the Department gardens, and in 1873 she
wrote to her husband that she could get him some fine orange trees if
he would promise the government to take great care of them and to keep
them apart from other trees till they fruited. Of course he agreed to
give them special attention, and therefore that December he received
three small, rooted orange trees. A cow chewed up one of these, but
for five years the others were watched and tended. Then sweet white
blossoms appeared on each little tree, and afterwards two oranges,
like hard green bullets at first. Finally, in January, 1879, Mr.
Tibbets picked four large, well-flavored, golden oranges, the first
seedless ones ever grown outside of Brazil.
From the hot swamps of the tropical country at Bahia the United States
Consul had sent six cuttings of this peculiar orange to be planted
in the Washington gardens. All died but the two at Riverside. In 1880
they bore half a bushel of fruit, and the new seedless oranges were
talked of throughout Southern California. The other orange growers
had been cultivating "seedlings," trees which bore smaller fruit, with
many bitter seeds and a thick skin. Many of these growers now cut back
their seedlings to bare limbs, and grafted the new orange on these
branches. This is called "budding," and is done by cutting off a thin
slip of bark with a tiny folded-up leaf-bud on it, inserting the graft
in the branch to be budded and securing it there with wax to keep the
air out. The little bud drinks in sap from the tree stem, and grows
and blossoms true to its own mother tree.
There were few orange groves then, but soon nearly all were budded
to the new kind, seventy-five acres being so changed on the Baldwin
Ranch; and when these trees began to bear, some five years afterwards,
people were much excited over the seedless fruit.
Such high prices were paid for these oranges at first, that orange
growing boomed all over Southern California. People thought their
fortunes were made when they set out a few acres of small budded trees
they had paid a dollar or more apiece for. Whole towns sprang up in
dry treeless valleys where only cattle and sheep had pastured,
and land worth only twenty-five dollars an acre before the orange
excitement, sold quickly for eight hundred and a thousand when planted
with trees. The towns of Pomona, Redlands, Monrovia, and others in
the orange localities were unknown before 1885, and grew to several
thousand population in a few years. Everybody talked of the great
profit in orange growing, and people who had nurseries of young trees
grown from navel buds made fortunes.
At this day thousands of acres of seedless oranges are in full bearing
and no one buys the old kinds. Hundreds of car-loads of the seedlings
are not even picked, and ninety per cent of the eighteen thousand
car-loads which make the season's orange crop are navel oranges. Over
forty-five millions of dollars are now invested in the growing and
marketing of this remarkable fruit.
At Riverside, the home of the orange, the two original Washington
navel trees still stand. Mr. Tibbets guarded them for years, had them
fenced with high latticework, and seldom allowed any one to touch
them. He refused ten thousand dollars for them, since for months he
sold hundreds of dollars' worth of buds from these parent trees. These
two trees and their large family have caused thousands of people to
come to the state, and have built up Southern California wonderfully.
THE LEMON
For many years people who use that sour but necessary fruit, the
lemon, thought that only the little yellow ones which came from the
far-away island of Sicily were good. The men who import foreign fruits
always said so; and in spite of the fact that the larger California
lemon was more acid, of as good flavor, smooth skinned, and golden,
people believed the Mediterranean groves produced the best. But, at
last, our warm, dry air, good soil, and plenty of water, together with
care and skill while growing and packing, have made California lemons
the most in demand. These lemons keep well, and bear shipping and long
journeys better than the imported fruit.
Citrus fruits, as the orange and lemon are called, do well in all the
southern counties, and San Diego County boasts of not only the largest
lemon grove in California, but in the world. This is a thousand-acre
tract overlooking San Diego Bay and cultivated by the Chula Vista
colony. It was once a pasture given up to wandering bands of cattle
and sheep. There was little water, and no one ever thought these dry
mesa lands would one day be a beautiful garden spot, green with the
shining lemon leaves, and golden with fruit.
A company was formed to develop this forty-two square miles of land,
and to get water for irrigation, since all the trees must have little
streams of water round their thirsty roots three or four times during
the dry summer. A great dam was constructed on the Sweetwater River,
near Chula Vista, and a reservoir built. Water was piped from this to
the lemon groves, which are about a hundred feet below the reservoir,
and from May to September the trees are irrigated. This is done by
ploughing furrows on each side of a row of trees and turning small
rills of water slowly down them till the ground is soaked around the
tree roots. No one thought the great reservoir would ever be empty,
but two winters with but little rain made it necessary to put down
many wells in the dry bed of the Sweetwater River, and from these a
strong steady flow of millions of gallons is pumped into the water
pipes. So this great lemon orchard is always sure of water enough,
returning the gift later in generous golden measure.
One may pick lemon blossoms, ripe and green fruit every month in the
year from the same tree, but most of the crop ripens from November to
June.
Lemons are carefully cut from the tree, and usually picked by size, a
ring being slipped over them, without regard to their ripeness. They
grow so thick on the tree that a man can pick more than twenty boxes
a day. In preparing it for market the fruit "sweats," as it is called,
in airy boxes, for a month in winter and ten days in summer, and
ripens and colors during this process. Then each lemon is wiped
dry and clean, wrapped separately in tissue-paper, and packed for
shipment. The cost of a box of lemons from the tree to the railroad is
about thirty-five cents.
Thousands of car-loads are shipped to the Eastern and Middle states,
while the Pacific Coast is a never-failing market.
Small, imperfect, and bruised fruit goes to the citric acid factory
near the packing-houses. From these oil of lemon, lemon sugar, and
clear green citric-acid crystals are made, and the crushed waste is
returned to the grove and ploughed in about the trees as a fertilizer.
FLOWERS AND PLANTS
"When California was wild," says John Muir, "it was one sweet
bee-garden throughout its entire length, and from the snowy Sierra to
the ocean."
There were so many yellow poppies in this great unfenced garden, that
the Spanish sailing along the coast called it the "Land of Fire" from
the golden flowers covering the hills. Near Pasadena, in Southern
California, these poppy fields may still be seen glowing so brightly
in the sun that you do not wonder at the name "Cape Las Flores," or
Flower Cape, which the sailors also gave to this part of the country.
[Illustration: IN A MISSION GARDEN.]
[Illustration: A CHRISTMAS GARDEN.]
The poppy is our best-known wild flower, planted by Mother Nature
before white men ever visited these shores. When the Spanish
settled here they called the poppy _copa de oro_, or cup of gold.
The gold hunters spoke of it as the California gold flower, and sent
the pressed poppies home in their letters. But its correct name is
the Eschscholtzia (esh-sholt'si-a), from the name of a German
botanist and naturalist, who studied the plant and wrote about it
almost a hundred years ago.
From February to May the poppies are most plentiful, but a few may be
found almost every month in the year. Have you noticed the finely cut
green leaves, and the pointed green nightcap that covers each bud till
the morning sunshine coaxes off the cap and unfolds the four satiny
golden petals? The flowers love the sun and close up on dark, cloudy
days, or if brought into the house. But put them in a sunny window the
next morning, and you may watch the cups of gold open to the light.
Some of the poppies are a deep orange-color, while others are a pale
yellow. And as you walk through the fields you may pick a hundred at
each step, so thick do the plants grow. The wild bees find a yellow
dust called pollen or "bee-bread" in the poppy, the same golden powder
that rubs off on your nose, when you put it too close to this cup of
gold or to lilies.
Then in this "unfenced garden" were also the baby blue-eyes, whose
pretty pale-blue blossoms come early in the spring, each one with a
drop of honey at the foot of its honey path, as the black lines on its
petals are called.
Can you name twenty kinds of wild flowers? Around San Francisco and
the bay counties you will count, after the poppy and baby blue-eyes,
the shining yellow buttercup, the blue and yellow lupines that grow in
the sand, the tall thistle whose sharp, prickly leaves and thorny
red blossoms spell "Let-me-alone," the blue flag-lilies and red
paint-brush, yellow cream-cups, and wild mustard, and an orange
pentstemon. These with many yellow compositæ or flowers like the
dandelion, you will find growing on the windy hills and dry, sunny
places. Hiding away in quiet corners are the blue-eyed grass, and
a wild purple hyacinth, the scarlet columbine swinging its golden
tassels, shy blue larkspur, a small yellow sunflower, and wild pink
roses. Among the ferns in shady, wet nooks are white trilliums and a
delicate pink bleeding-heart, while the wild blue violets and yellow
pansies love the warm, rocky hillside.
Mariposas, or butterfly tulips of many colors, grow in the foot-hills
and mountains. Perhaps our most beautiful wild flowers are the lilies,
of which we have over a dozen kinds. In the redwood forests there is a
tall, lovely pink lily, and many brown-spotted yellow tiger-lilies. Up
in the mountain pines a snowy white Washington lily sometimes covers
a mountain side with its tall stems bearing dozens of sweet waxen
blossoms. In the wet, swampy places bright red, and many small orange
lilies bloom in late summer.
In the high Sierras are found strange and pretty blossoms unlike
the flowers of valleys and sea-coast. There you will see the
mountain-heather with pink, purple, or dainty white bells, the
goldenrod, and gentians blue as the sky. Strangest of all is the
snow-plant. This curious thing sends up a thick, fleshy spike a foot
or so in height and set closely with bright scarlet flowers. It grows
where the snow has just melted round the fir trees, and leaf, stem,
and blossom are all the same glowing red.
Most of the valley and coast wild-flowers bloom and ripen their seeds
before the dry summer begins. Such plants die and wither away in the
heat, but their seeds are safe on the warm ground till fall rains soak
the earth and set them growing again. In the high mountains a thick
blanket of snow covers the sleeping seeds till May or June, and then
sunshine wakes them once more.
[Illustration: "WAWONA" (28 feet in diameter).]
[Illustration: THE GRIZZLY GIANT (33 feet in diameter).]
No doubt you have seen many of our shrubs or tall bush-plants in your
vacations. Do you remember the sweet creamy white azaleas and the
buckeyes that grow along the creeks in the redwoods? And the feathery
blue blossoms of the wild lilac crowding in close thickets up
the hillsides? One of our shrubs is a holiday visitor, the
Christmas-berry, whose bright-red clusters trim your house at that
gay, happy season. The manzanita is another pretty bush, with pink
bells that ripen to small scarlet apples in the fall.