I have already stated that I spent most of Wednesday in an examination,
under Col. Fremont’s guidance, of the mines he is working in Bear
Valley, and of the mills in which he reduces the rock and separates the
gold. I usually observe carefully the rule which enjoins reserve, when
addressing the public, respecting matters of purely personal and private
concern; but there are circumstances in the case of Col. F. which seem
to justify a departure from the general usage. Chosen three or four
years since the standard-bearer of a new political organization in an
exciting contest, and exposed, because of that choice, to a torrent of
personal defamation which not merely impeached his integrity as a man
and his fidelity as a public servant, but sought to divest him at once
of his name, his religious faith, and even of his native land, I believe
there are many thousands who cherish for Col. Fremont a personal regard
and affection which render them profoundly solicitous with respect to
his good or evil fortune. It is for this class only that I write the
following:
The public are generally aware that Colonel Fremont purchased from a
Mexican at an early day a large tract or grant of wild mountain land
lying among the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada, called by the Mexicans,
Los Mariposas (the Butterfly), after a wild flower known to abound here.
It is known also that this tract was, some years after, discovered or
presumed to be rich in gold—the first piece of rich vein-stone having
been taken out by the proprietor’s own hand. It is further known that
all manner of difficulties and obstructions were interposed to defeat
the confirmation of the grant under which Colonel Fremont holds his
title, and that a protracted and most expensive litigation was thus
forced upon him. Meantime, the property was wholly unproductive—that is
to its owner—and the most inviting portions of it were clutched by
squatters, who claimed, as they still claim, a right to dig its soil
into utterly worthless chasms and heaps in quest of gold, to cut down
its timber and feed off its grass at their own discretion, leaving to
the fortunate owner only the privilege of paying the taxes, which, under
the management of public affairs by officers politically and personally
hostile to him, have been swelled to no less than sixteen thousand
dollars per annum—his taxes, remember, on an estate which every body
used or wasted as they saw fit, and which was yielding him no income
whatever. For the feeble efforts at quartz-mining made in his behalf in
his years of absence—in the absence, too, of all successful experience
in such mining—only served to involve him still more deeply in debt,
which was further swelled by unfortunate agencies and business
connections, until the aggregate of his liabilities on account of this
property can hardly have fallen short of half a million dollars.
Such were the circumstances, under which he determined, in 1857, to
return to his California estate, and here, surrounded by his family,
devote all his time and energies to its improvement and renovation. In
the spirit of that determination he has since lived and labored, rising
with the lark, and striving to obtain a complete knowledge and master of
the entire business, taking more and more labor and responsibility on
his own shoulders as he felt himself able to bear them, until he is now
manager, chief engineer, cashier, accountant, and at the head of every
other department but that of law, for which he finds it necessary still
to rely on professional aid. And his mines are at length becoming
productive and profitable. His first (steam) mill, near his dwelling,
runs eight stamps night and day; his second (water) mill, three miles
distant, on the Merced, at the north end of his estate, runs twelve
stamps, also constantly; and the two are producing gold at the rate of
at least two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per annum, at an
absolute cost, I am confident, of not more than one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars. Of course he needs all the profits, if not more, to
extend and perfect his works, having already a much larger water-mill
nearly ready to go into operation beside that on the Merced, in which he
expects, I believe, to run fifty-six stamps, and he hopes to have one
hundred in all running before the close of 1860. With that number, I
presume, he would be able, by giving his constant personal attention to
the business, aided by faithful and capable assistants, to realize a net
profit of at least ten thousand dollars per week, which would very soon
clear him of debt and leave him unincumbered in the ownership of perhaps
the finest mining property in the world.
Still, the Spanish proverb, “It takes a mine to work a mine” is
exemplified in his case, as in others. A large additional investment is
needed to render his property as productive as it might be. For
instance: he has just contracted for the transportation of thirty
thousand tons of vein-stone from his great mine to his mill on the
Merced (barely a mile and a half down hill) for sixty thousand dollars.
One half of this sum would construct a railroad from the heart of the
mine down to the floor of the mill, and take down this amount of rock,
leaving the railroad and thirty thousand clear gain. But he must have
the rock at once, while the railroad would require time, and a heavy
outlay of ready cash. A Rothschild would build the road forthwith, and
save forty thousand dollars; but Colonel F., not being yet a Rothschild,
whatever he may in time become, must bide his time.
His great vein, though not the richest, is probably the most capacious
of any in California. Its thickness varies from eight to thirty-eight
feet—I believe it is in one place sixty feet wide. It is, in fact, a
cliff or pyramid of gold-bearing quartz inclosed in a mountain of
slate—a mountain deeply gashed and seamed in various directions by the
water-courses which run down it to the Merced. These ravines, this
river, aided by proper engineering, obviate all the usually heavy, often
ruinous, expense of pumping; the mine, properly opened, will not only
clear itself of water, but the vein-stone may be easily run out on
inclined tram-roads, instead of being hoisted to the surface through
shafts by an enormous outlay of power. Then the width of the vein
obviates all necessity for dead-work, save in sinking shafts and running
up adits; the principal work is rather quarrying than mining; and there
can be no apprehension that the vein will give out or grow poor, because
it has already been tested at its various outcrops to a depth of fifteen
hundred feet, and is richer at the bottom than near the top, where it
has mainly been worked to this time. I have no doubt that there are ten
millions of dollars in this mine above water-level—that is, the level of
the Merced—and that, though the yield of gold thus far has fallen rather
below twenty dollars per ton, it may, even at that rate, be mined at a
net profit of at least one-fourth of the gross product. Colonel F. is
confident that his present works do not separate half the gold contained
in the rock, and that, by the use of the new amalgamators he is about to
apply, he will double his weekly product without any increase of cost.
This conviction is founded on chemical experiments and tests, which seem
to leave no doubt of the fact that the additional gold is in the rock;
but whether the means of extracting it have yet been discovered, remains
to be seen. At all events, I feel sure that the productiveness of these
works will increase much faster than their expenses, so long as Colonel
Fremont shall devote himself to their management so entirely as he is
now doing. In the hands of agents and attorneys, they would probably
become again what they once were, and what all quartz-mining works,
managed at second hand, have been.
XXX.
CALIFORNIA PHYSICALLY CONSIDERED.
SAN JOSÉ, Cal., _Aug. 27, 1859_.
The state of California may be roughly characterized as two ranges of
mountains—a large and a small one—with a great valley between them, and
a narrow, irregular counterpart separating the smaller from the Pacific
ocean. If we add to these a small strip of arid, but fertile coast, and
a broad sandy desert behind it, lying south-west of California proper,
and likely one day to be politically severed from it, we have a
sufficiently accurate outline of the topography of the golden state.
Such a region, stretching from north latitude 32° 30′ up to latitude
42°, and rising from the Pacific ocean up to perpetually snow-covered
peaks fifteen thousand feet high, can hardly be said to have a climate.
Aside from the Alpine crests of the Sierra, and the sultry deserts below
the Mohave and Santa Barbara, California embodies almost every gradation
of climate, from the semi-arctic to the semi-tropical. There are green,
fertile valleys in the Sierra which only begin to be well grassed when
the herbage of the great valley is drying up, and from which the cattle
are driven by snows as early as the first of October—long before grass
begins to start afresh on the banks of the Sacramento. There are other
valleys upon and near the sea-coast, wherein frost and snow are
strangers, rarely seen, and vanishing with the night that gave them
being. Generally, however, we may say of the state, that it has a mild,
dry, breezy, healthy climate, better than that of Italy; in that the
sultry, scorching blasts from African deserts have here no counterpart.
Save in the higher mountains, or in the extreme north-east, snow never
lies, the earth never freezes, and winter is but a milder, greener,
longer spring, throughout which cattle pick up their own living far more
easily and safely than in summer.
The climate of the valleys may be said to be created, as that of the
mountains is modified, by the influence of the Pacific ocean.
Sea-breezes from the south-west in winter, from the north-west in
summer, maintain an equilibrium of temperature amazing to New
Englanders. San Francisco—situated on the great bay formed by the
passage of the blended waters of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin—the
former draining the western slope of the Sierra Nevada from the north,
as the latter does from the south—is thus, as it were, in the throat of
the bellows through which the damp gales from the Pacific are constantly
rushing to cool the parched slopes, or warm the snow-clad heights of the
interior. I presume there was never a day without a breeze at San
Francisco—generally, a pretty stiff one. The sea-breeze is always damp,
often chilly, and rolls up clouds which hide the sun for a part, at
least, of most days. Though ice seldom forms, and snow never lies in her
streets, San Francisco must be regarded as a cold place by most of her
visitors and unacclimated summer denizens. I presume a hot day was never
known there, and no night in which a pair of good woollen blankets were
not esteemed a shelter and a comfort by all but extremely hot-blooded
people. Thick flannels and warm woollen outer-garments are worn
throughout the year by all who have, or can get them. In short, San
Francisco is in climate what London would be with her summer rains
transformed into stiff and almost constant breezes.
The soil of California is almost uniformly good. The valleys and ravines
rejoice in a generous depth of dark, vegetable mould, usually mingled
with, or resting on clay; while the less precipitous hill-sides are
covered by a light reddish clayey loam of good quality, asking only
adequate moisture to render it amply productive. Bring a stream of water
almost anywhere, save on the naked granite, and you incite a luxuriant
vegetation.
Yet the traveler who first looks down on the valleys and lower
hill-sides of California in mid-summer is generally disappointed by the
all but universal deadness. Some hardy weeds, a little sour, coarse
grass along the few still living water-courses, some small, far between
gardens and orchards rendered green and thrifty by irrigation, form
striking exceptions to the general paralysis of all the less inspiring
manifestations of vegetable life. High up in the mountains, he has found
green valleys whereon the snow doubtless lingered till late in June,
leaving the soil saturated like a wet sponge for a month later; and
there are swampy meadows whereon the coarse grass grows thick to a
height of several feet; while beds of delicate flowering-plants,
sheltered by the tall forests, maintain their vitality on the mountain
slopes till late in August; but he passes out of the region of
evergreens into that of oaks as he descends to a level of some three
thousand feet above the ocean, and green valleys, luxuriant meadows, and
mountain-glades of flowering-plants still living, salute him no longer.
The oaks gradually become sparse and scattered; their dark foliage
contrasts strongly with the dun, dead, herbage beneath and between them;
as he descends to the plains, the oaks vanish or become like angels’
visits, while a broad expanse of dried-up pasture-range vies with
occasional strips of wheat or barley stubble in evincing the protracted
fierceness of the summer drouth. His vision sweeps over miles after
miles of stubble and range whereon no sign of vegetable life—not even a
green weed—is presented; he sees seven-eighths of the water-courses
absolutely, intensely dry; while the residue are reduced from rivers to
scanty brooks, from brooks to tiny rivulets; and he murmurs to
himself—“Is this the American Italy? It looks more like a Sahara or
Gobi.”
Yet this, like most hasty judgments, is a very unsound one. These
slopes, these vales, now so dead and cheerless, are but resting from
their annual and ever successful efforts to contribute bountifully to
the sustenance and comfort of man. Summer is their season of torpor, as
winter is ours. Dead as these wheat-fields now appear, the stubble is
thick and stout, and its indications are more than justified by the
harvest they have this year yielded. _The California State Register_
gives the following as the officially returned wheat-yield of the state
for the last three years:
Years. Total Acres in Wheat. Total Product.
1856 171,869 3,879,032
1857 164,642 3,205,484
1858 186,464 3,568,669
Giving as the aggregate of three years’ growth of wheat, 10,653,185
bushels from 522,975 acres, or more than twenty bushels per acre. I am
confident that the aggregate yield of the Atlantic states for those same
three years did not exceed ten bushels per seeded acre. The average
yield of barley throughout the state, according to these returns, is
about twenty-five bushels, and of oats something over thirty bushels,
per seeded acre. I know the majority will say “These are but moderate
crops;” and so they may be, if compared with what might be grown, and in
particular instances are grown; but if compared with the actual average
yield of small grain throughout the Atlantic states, they are large
indeed.
California—though very little of her soil produces good crops of[12]
Indian corn, owing to the coolness of her summer nights and the want of
seasonable rains—now grows her own bread, and may easily grow far more.
Estimating her population at half a million, her last year’s crop
exceeded seven bushels per head, which is an ample allowance; and this
year’s crop is still better, with a larger area sown.
Footnote 12:
Yet the returns of 1858 give a yield of 620,323 bushels from 12,978
acres, or forty-eight bushels per acre where grown. But it can only be
grown to profit in limited localities.
But, while only 756,734 acres in all of the soil of this state were
cultivated last year (which still shows an increase on any former year),
there were 1,159,813 acres of _inclosed_ land—with of course a much
larger area of uninclosed—devoted to grazing. Cattle-growing was the
chief employment of the Californians of other days; and cattle-growing
next after mining, is the chief business of the Californians of 1859.
There are comparatively few farms yet established, while _ranches_
abound on every side. A _corral_, into which to drive his wild herd when
use or security is in question, and a field or two in which to pasture
his milch cows and working cattle, are often all of the _ranche_ that is
inclosed; the herd is simply branded with the owner’s mark and turned
out to range where they will, being looked after occasionally by a
mounted _ranchero_, whose horse is trained to dexterity in running among
or around them. Stables for horses I have seen; but such a thing as an
honest, straight-out barn has not blessed my eyes in connection with any
farm since I left civilized Kansas—if even there. A Californian would as
soon think of cutting hay for the sustenance of his family as for that
of his herd. In fact, winter is, after spring, his cattle’s best
season—that in which they can best take care of themselves with regard
to food. From August to November is their hardest time. But the herbage
which rendered the hills and plains one vast flower-garden in spring is,
though dead and dry as tinder, still nutritious; its myriad flowers have
given place to seeds which have the qualities of grain; and, if the
range be broad enough, cattle which have nought to do but forage,
contrive to eke out a pretty fair living. But it were absurd to suppose
that a single crop of dead herbage can afford, acre for acre, equal
nourishment with the constantly renewed grasses of an eastern pasture;
and many herds suffer from want of consideration of this fact. As
_ranches_ are multiplied and herds increased, a change of system becomes
inevitable. The cattle-grower must fence off a portion of his range and
sow it to Indian corn, to sorghum, to turnips, beets, and carrots,
wherewith to supply the deficiency of his summer and fall feed. Then he
can keep a much larger herd than is now profitable if possible, and may
double his annual product of cheese or butter. At present, I judge this
product to be smaller per cow or per acre in California than in almost
any other state, except what is made in the high valleys of the Sierra
Nevada.
Fruit, however, is destined to be the ultimate glory of California.
Nowhere else on earth is it produced so readily or so bountifully. Such
pears, peaches, apricots, nectarines, etc., as load the trees of this
valley, and of nearly every valley in the state which has had any chance
to produce them, would stagger the faith of nine-tenths of my readers.
Peach-trees only six years set, which have borne four large burdens of
fruit while growing luxuriantly each year, are quite common.
Apple-trees, but three years set, yet showing at least a bushel of
large, fair fruit, are abundant. I have seen peach-trees four or five
years from the states which have all the fruit they can stagger under,
yet have grown three feet of new wood over this load during the current
season. Dwarf-pears, just stuck into the black loam, and nowise
fertilized or cultivated, but covered with fruit the year after they
were set, and thenceforward bearing larger and larger yields with each
succeeding summer, are seen in almost every tolerably cared-for
fruit-patch. I cannot discover an instance in which any fruit-tree,
having borne largely one year, consults its dignity or its ease by
standing still or growing wood only the next year, as is common our way.
I have seen green-gages and other plum-trees so thickly set with fruit
that I am sure the plums would far outweigh the trees, leaves and all.
And not one borer, curculio, caterpillar, apple-worm, or other nuisance
of that large and undelightful family, appears to be known in all this
region. Under a hundred fruit-trees, you will not see one bulb which has
prematurely fallen—a victim to this destructive brood.
Of grapes, it is hardly yet time to speak so sanguinely as many do; for
years will be required to render certain their exemption from the
diseases and the devastators known to other lands of the vine. But it is
certain that some kinds of grapes have been grown around the old Jesuit
Missions for generations, with little care and much success; while it
does not appear that the more delicate varieties recently introduced are
less thrifty or more subject to attack than their Spanish predecessors,
and vineyards are being multiplied and expanded in almost every farming
neighborhood; single vines and patches of choice varieties are shooting
up in almost every garden throughout the mining regions; and there can
be little doubt that California is already better supplied with the
grape than any other state of the Union. That she is destined soon to
become largely and profitably engaged in the manufacture and exportation
of wine, is a current belief here, which I am at once unable and
disinclined to controvert.
That California is richest of all the American states in timber, as well
as in minerals, I consider certain, though the forests of Oregon are
doubtless stately and vast. Even the Coast Range between this valley and
Santa Cruz on the south-west, is covered by magnificent red-wood—some of
the trees sixteen feet through, and fifty in circumference. In soil, I
cannot consider her equal to Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, or Minnesota;
though the ready markets afforded by her mines to her farms probably
render this one of the most inviting states to the enterprising,
energetic husbandman. But it must be considered that not half the soil
of California can ever be deemed arable; the larger area being covered
by mountains, ravines, deserts, etc. In fact, when one-fourth of the
entire state shall have been plowed and reduced to tillage, I judge that
the residue might better be left to grow timber and grass. Steep, rocky
hill-sides on which no rain falls from June to November, can never be
tilled to much profit.
This persistent summer drouth is not an unmixed evil. It is a guaranty
against many insects, and against rust, even in the heaviest grain.
Grain and hay are got in at far less cost and in much better average
condition here than they can be where the summers are not cloudless and
rainless. Weeds are far less persistent and pestilent here than at the
east; while the air is so uniformly dry and bracing, and the days so
generally tempered by a fresh breeze, that the human frame maintains its
elasticity in spite of severe and continued exertion. I was never before
in a region where so much could be accomplished to the hand in summer as
just here.
And yet—and yet—my early prejudices in favor of a refreshing shower
occasionally are not fully overcome. I dislike to look for miles across
so rich and beautiful a valley as this of San José, and see paralysis
and death the rule, greenness and life the exception. I dislike to see
cattle picking at the dry, brown herbage, and can’t help thinking they
would like a field of sweet, green clover, or thick blue grass, a good
deal better. This may be a mistake on my part; but, if so, it is one
that does credit to their discernment and taste. And I like to see a
garden planted in well-grounded reliance on the rains of heaven—not
dependent for its very existence on the “saki,” or artificial brook,
which I am always glad to see flowing into a field, no matter on which
side of the Rocky Mountains. I believe firmly in irrigation; but I
prefer land that there is some credit in irrigating, to that which must
be irrigated, or it might better have lain unplowed and unsown.
Of course it is understood that irrigation is exceptional, even here.
All the grains are grown here without irrigation; but the small grains
are hurried up quite sharply by drouth, and in some instances blighted
by it, and, at best, are doubtless, much lighter than they would be with
a good, soaking rain early in June; while Indian corn, and most roots
and vegetables are only, in favored localities, grown to perfection
without artificial watering. Hence, it is supposed that every garden
throughout the state, save a part of those near the coast, and within
the immediate influence of the damp sea-breeze, must have its stream of
water, or it comes to nothing, and various devices are employed to
procure the needful fluid. Of these, I like Artesian wells far best; and
they are already numerous, especially in this valley. But ordinary
wells, surmounted by windmills, which press every casual breeze into the
service, and are often pumping up a good stream of water while the owner
and all hands are asleep, are much more common, and are found to answer
very well; while some keep their little gardens in fair condition by
simply drawing water, bucket after bucket, in the old, hard way. In the
valleys, and perhaps on the hill-sides as well, it is generally held
that the vine requires no irrigation, after being set two years; and the
better opinion seems to be, that fruit-trees, after two years’ watering,
do better without. I have not yet satisfied myself as to the feasibility
of superseding irrigation by deep plowing, though my strong conviction
is, that every orchard and garden should be thoroughly dug up and
pulverized, to a depth of three, if not four feet; and that those so
treated, would thereafter need little, if any, artificial watering. I
hope to learn further on this point.
Let me close this too long letter with a grateful acknowledgment to an
emigrant—M. Sheals, I read his name—who found my trunk by the Three
Crossings of Sweetwater (not in the stream, as I supposed it was) and
brought it along over three hundred miles to Salt Lake City, where he
delivered it to the California Stage Company, which forwarded it to me.
Mr. Sheals writes that he found it in, or beside the road broken open;
but, as I do not miss any papers of consequence, I presume nothing of
much value to me was taken from it. How it came in the road—the
half-mile between the station, whence we started that morning, and the
place where I missed it, having been twice ridden over in quest of it
within half an hour after its loss—I have not yet been able to
conjecture, and I will thank whoever can, to shed even a ray of light on
the subject. If Mr. Sheals will favor me with his address, he will add
sensibly to the debt I already owe him.
XXXI.
CALIFORNIA—HER RESOURCES.
MARYSVILLE, Cal., _Sep. 2, 1859_.
Since my last, I have traversed the rich valley of San José, looking
through some of its choicer gardens and orchards, and stopping at Santa
Clara, Warm Spring, Old Mission, San Leandro (county seat of Alameda),
and Oakland, returning to San Francisco, and coming thence by steamboat
to Sacramento and by a much smaller boat up to this city, which I
reached last evening, in season to listen to the annual address, by Mr.
Rhodes of Oroville, at the agricultural fair, and to break my own voice
for a time in attempting to follow him in some off-hand remarks. The
edifice erected by the public spirit of Marysville for the fairs which
are to be held here annually, and at which all northern California is
invited to compete for very liberal premiums, is quite spacious and
admirably adapted to all its purposes except that of public speaking;
and herein is collected the finest show of fruits and vegetables I ever
saw at anything but a state fair. Indian corn not less than twenty feet
high; squashes like brass kettles and water-melons of the size of
buckets, are but average samples of the wonderful productiveness of the
Sacramento and Yuba valleys, while the peaches, plums, pears, grapes,
apples, etc., could hardly be surpassed anywhere. The show of animals is
not extensive, but is very fine in the departments of horses and horned
cattle, though lamentably meager in every other respect. The most
interesting feature of this show was its young stock—calves and colts
scarcely more than a year old, equal in weight and size, while far
superior in form and symmetry, to average horses and bulls of ripe
maturity. With generous fare and usage, I am confident that steers and
heifers two years old in California will equal in size and development
those a year older in our northern states, and that California colts of
three years will be fully equal to eastern colts of like blood and
breeding a good year older—an immense advantage to the breeder on the
Pacific. I am reliably assured that steers a year old, never fed but on
wild grass, and never sheltered, have here dressed six hundred pounds of
fine beef. Undoubtedly, California is one of the cheapest and best
stock-growing countries in the world—and will be, after these great,
slovenly ranches shall have been broken up into neat, modest farms, and
when the cattle shall be fed at least three months in each year on
roots, hay and sorghum, or other green fodder.
Marysville is the chief town of northern California, and disputes the
claim of Stockton to rank third among the cities of the state. Unlike
Stockton, it is quite compactly built, mainly of brick. Its population
is probably a little over fifteen thousand; and it expects to be soon
connected by railroad with Sacramento and San Francisco, which will give
a new and strong impulse to its already rapid growth. Located at the
junction of the Yuba and Feather Rivers, just above their union with the
Sacramento, and at the head of steamboat navigation in the direction of
the northern mines, it needs but the railroad connections aforesaid to
render it a formidable rival to Sacramento herself. The census of 1870
will probably find its population exceeding fifty thousand.
The valleys of the rivers first named are exceedingly deep and fertile,
and their productiveness in this vicinity almost surpasses belief. I
visited in the suburbs this morning, gardens, vineyards, orchards, of
rarely equaled fruitfulness. The orchard of Mr. Briggs, for example,
covers a hundred and sixty acres, all in young fruit, probably one-half
peaches. He has had a squad of thirty or forty men picking and boxing
peaches for the last month, yet his fruit by the cart-load ripens and
rots ungathered. The wagons which convey it to the mines have their
regular stations and relays of horses like mail-stages, and are thus
pulled sixty miles up rough mountain-passes, per day, where twenty-five
miles would be a heavy day’s work for any one team. But he is not
sending to the mines only, but by steamboat to Sacramento and San
Francisco as well. His sales last year, I am told, amounted to $90,000;
his net income was not less than $40,000. And this was realized mainly
from peaches, apricots and nectarines; his apples and pears have barely
begun to bear; his cherries will yield their first crop next year. There
are of course heavier fruit-growers in California than Mr. Briggs, but
he may be taken as a fair sample of the class. Their sales will
doubtless be made at lower and still lower prices; they are now a little
higher than those realized for similar fruit grown in New Jersey; they
were once many times higher than now; but, though their prices steadily
decrease, their incomes do not, because their harvests continued to be
augmented by at least twenty-five per cent. per annum.
Let me give one other instance of successful fruit-growing in another
district: Mr. Fallen, the Mayor of San José, has a fine garden, in which
are some ten or twelve old pear-trees—relics of the Spanish era and of
the Jesuit missions. The trees being thrifty but the fruit indifferent,
Mr. F. had them pretty thoroughly grafted with the Bartlett variety, and
the _second_ year thereafter gathered from one tree, one thousand pounds
of Bartlett pears, which he sold for two hundred dollars, or twenty
cents per pound. The other trees similarly treated, bore him six to
seven hundred pounds each of that large, delicious fruit, which he sold
at the same price. And, every year since, these trees have borne large
yields of these capital pears. I dare not hope for equal success in the
east, but surely the expedient of grafting fine, large varieties on our
now worthless pears, at the same time bounteously enriching the soil
beneath them, ought to be more generally adopted than it has yet been.
Just a word now on grain. California is still a young state, whose
industry and enterprise are largely devoted to mining; yet she grows the
bread of her half a million well-fed inhabitants on less than a fortieth
part of her arable soil, and will this year have some to spare. I am
confident her wheat crop of 1859 is over four millions of bushels, and I
think it exceeds twenty-five bushels for each acre sown. To-day, its
price in San Francisco is below a dollar per bushel, and it is not
likely to rise very soon. Though grown, harvested and threshed by the
help of labor which costs her farmers from thirty to forty dollars per
month, beside board, it is still mainly grown at a profit; and so of a
very large breadth of barley, grown here instead of oats as food for
working horses and cattle. Though wheat is probably the fullest, I judge
that barley is the surest of any grain-crop grown in the state. It has
never failed to any serious extent.
Indian corn is not extensively grown; only the Russian River and one or
two other small valleys are generally supposed well adapted to it. And
yet, I never saw larger nor better corn growing than stands to-day right
here on the Yuba—not a few acres merely, but hundreds of acres in a
body. I judge that nearly all the intervales throughout the state would
produce good corn, if well treated. On the hill-sides, irrigation may be
necessary, but not in the valleys. None has been resorted to here; yet
the yield of shelled grain will range between seventy-five and a hundred
bushels per acre. And this is no solitary instance. Back of Oakland,
across the bay from San Francisco, Mr. Hobart, a good farmer from
Massachusetts, showed me acres of heavy corn which he planted last May,
after the rains had ceased and the dry season fairly set in, since which
no hoe nor plow has been put into the field; yet the soil remains light
and porous, while there are very few weeds. Not one drop of water has
been applied to this farm; yet here are not only corn, but potatoes,
beets, etc., with any number of young fruit-trees, all green and
thriving, by virtue of subsoiling and repeated plowings last spring. The
ground (sward) was broken up early in the winter, and cross-plowed
whenever weeds showed their heads, until planting-time; and this
discipline, aided by the drouth, has prevented their starting during the
summer. Such thorough preparation for a crop costs something; but, this
once made, the crop needs here only to be planted and harvested. Such
farming pays.
The fig-tree grows in these valleys side by side with the apple; ripe
figs are now gathered daily from nearly all the old Mexican gardens. The
olive grows finely in Southern California, and I believe the orange and
lemon as well. But the grape bids fair to become a staple throughout the
state. Almost every farmer, who feels sure of his foothold on the land
he cultivates, either has his vineyard already planted, or is preparing
to plant one, while most of those who have planted are extending from
year to year. I have looked through many of these vineyards, without
finding one that is not thrifty—one that, if two years planted, is not
now loaded with fruit. The profusion and weight of the clusters is
marvelous to the fresh beholder. I will not attempt to give figures; but
it is my deliberate judgment that grapes may be grown here as cheaply as
wheat or corn, pound for pound, and that wine will ultimately be made
here at a cost per gallon not exceeding that of whisky in Illinois or
Ohio. Wine will, doubtless, constitute a heavy export of California
within a very few years. So, I think, will choice timber, should the
wages of labor even fall here so as to approximate our Eastern
standards. At present, I estimate the average cost of labor in
California at just about double the rates paid for such labor in the
Middle states; which, with wheat and beef at New York prices, or lower,
and clothing little higher in a climate which requires little fuel,
ought to make the condition of the effective worker here a very fair
one. Such I consider it to be; while I am assured by practical men that
a fall of even twenty-five per cent. in wages would incite a large and
prompt extension of mining, farming, etc., affording employment to
additional thousands of laborers. Should fair, average day-labor ever
fall here to a dollar per day, I think the demand for it in mining would
very speedily be doubled, and soon quadrupled. I do not imply that such
reduction is either desirable or probable; but I can see why the owners
of large estates or of mining claims should strongly desire an ample and
incessant immigration. This is plain enough; while it is not so obvious,
though I deem it equally true, that an immigration of one hundred
thousand effective workers per annum, would be readily absorbed by
California, and would add steadily and immensely to her prosperity and
wealth.
Yet I cannot conclude this survey without alluding once more to the
deplorable confusion and uncertainty of land-titles, which has been, and
still is the master-scourge of this state. The vicious Spanish-Mexican
system of granting lands by the mere will of some provincial governor or
municipal chief without limitation as to area, or precise delineation of
boundaries, here develops and matures its most pernicious fruits. Your
title may be ever so good, and yet your farm be taken from under you by
a new survey, proving that said title does not cover your tract, or
covers it but partially. Hence, many refuse or neglect to improve the
lands they occupy, lest some title adverse to theirs be established, and
they legally ousted, or compelled to pay heavily for their own
improvements. And, in addition to the genuine Spanish or Mexican grants,
which the government and courts must confirm and uphold, there are
fictitious and fraudulent grants—some of them only trumped up to be
bought off, and often operating to create anarchy, and protract
litigation between settlers and the real owners. Then there are,
doubtless, squatters, who refuse to recognize and respect valid titles,
and waste in futile litigation the money that might make the lands they
occupy indisputably their own. I blame no party exclusively, while I
entreat the state and federal governments and courts to do their utmost
to settle the titles to lands in this state beyond controversy, at the
earliest possible day. Were the titles to lands in California to-day as
clear as in Ohio or Iowa, nothing could check the impetus with which
California would bound forward in a career of unparalleled thrift and
growth. It were far better for the state and her people that those
titles were wrongly settled, than that they should remain as now. I met
to-day an intelligent farmer, who has had three different farms in this
state, and has lost them successively by adjudication adverse to his
title. I would earnestly implore grantees and squatters to avoid
litigation wherever that is possible, and arrest it as soon as possible,
eschewing appeals, save in flagrant cases, and meeting each other
half-way in settlement as often as may be. The present cost of
litigation, enormous as it is, is among the lesser evil consequences of
this general anarchy as to land-titles.
Should these ever be settled, it will probably be found advisable to
legislate for the speedy breaking up and distribution of the great
estates now held under good titles by a few individuals. There will
never be good common schools on, nor about these great domains, which
will mainly be inhabited by needy and thriftless tenants, or dependents
of the landlords. An annual tax of a few cents per acre, the proceeds to
be devoted to the erection of school-houses, and the opening of roads
through these princely estates, would go far to effect the desired end.
But, whether by this, or by some other means, the beneficent end of
making the cultivators of the soil their own landlords must somehow be
attained—the sooner the better, so that it be done justly and legally.
In the course of several hundred miles’s travel through the best settled
portions of this state, I remember having seen but two school-houses
outside of the cities and villages, while the churches are still more
uniformly restricted to the centers of population. Whenever the
land-titles shall have been settled, and the arable lands have become
legally and fairly the property of their cultivators, all this will be
speedily and happily changed.
I believe, too, that the time is at hand when some modification of the
present mining laws will be demanded and conceded. Hitherto, the
operators with pick and pan have been masters of the state, and have
ruled it, like other aristocracies, with a sharp eye to their own
supposed interests. To dig up a man’s fenced garden, or dig down his
house, in quest of gold, is the legal privilege of any miner who does
not even pretend to have any rights in the premises but such as the
presumed existence of gold thereon gives him. Of course, the law
contemplates payment for damages sustained; but suppose the digger is
pecuniarily irresponsible, and digs down your house without finding any
more gold than he spends in the quest, what are you to do about it? Such
laws, I trust, cannot stand. I am sure they should not.
XXXII.
CALIFORNIA—SUMMING UP.
SAN FRANCISCO, _Sept. 4–5, 1859_.
The entire area of this state is officially estimated as containing a
fraction less than one hundred millions of acres; but, as this total
includes bays as well as lakes, rivers, etc., the actual extent of
unsubmerged land can hardly exceed ninety millions of acres, or rather
more than nine times the area of New Hampshire or Vermont—perhaps twice
the area of the state of New York. It is only a guess on my part, but
one founded on considerable travel and observation, which makes not more
than one-third of this extent—say thirty millions of acres—properly
arable; the residue being either ruggedly mountainous, hopelessly
desert, or absorbed in the _tulé_ marshes which line the San Joaquin and
perhaps some other rivers. The arable thirty millions of acres—nearly
the area of all New England, except Maine—are scarcely equaled in
capacity of production by any like area on earth. They embrace the best
vine-lands on this continent, to an extent of many millions of acres—an
area capable of producing all the wine and all the raisins annually
consumed on the globe. All the fruits of the temperate zone are grown
here in great luxuriance and perfection, together with the fig, olive,
etc., to which the lemon and orange may be added in the south. No other
land on earth produces wheat, rye, and barley so largely with so little
labor as the great majority of these thirty million acres; a portion of
them are well adapted also to Indian corn. To stock-growing in an easy,
slovenly, reckless way, this mild climate and fertile soil also lend
themselves readily; yet I must believe that many more acres are required
here to graze a thousand head of cattle than in New York or Kentucky,
and that the capacities of California to furnish beef and milk in this
poor fashion have been taxed very nearly to the utmost. Doubtless, four,
six, or even ten times the present number of cattle will be fed here at
some future day, but not wholly on the spontaneous growth of the valleys
and hill-sides. Nay, I hear already that, as the wild oats and natural
grasses are closely fed year after year, so as to preclude their seeding
or prevent the seed falling to the earth and germinating, they gradually
die out, and are supplanted by coarse, worthless weeds. Evidently—and I
rejoice over the fact—the day of ranches, or broad unfenced domains over
which the cattle of the owner range at will, protected only by his brand
from indiscriminate appropriation, is passing away for ever. And it is
high time. Though the range is yet many acres per head, and the feed
ample for the greater part of the year, yet the cows of California give
less milk to-day than a like number kept for milk on any other portion
of the globe. The dry grass and stubble on which they subsist keep them
in fair flesh, but furnish a scanty overplus for butter and cheese. Good
butter is worth fifty cents and over per pound, and has generally at
this season a white, insipid look, like that made in winter at the east.
Cheese commands twenty-five cents per pound, and is seldom seen on hotel
or private tables. Yet the production, though meager, is rapidly
increasing; the little valleys opening directly on the Pacific, and thus
kept green by its fogs and damp winds, in spite of the six months’
absence of rain, yielding it most abundantly. A cheese weighing seven
hundred and fifty pounds, the product of a single dairy, is now here, on
its way to the State Fair at Sacramento; the large store in which I saw
it is full, from basement to attic, of California-made cheese. Yet
California does not nearly supply her own wants, whether of cheese or
butter, and never will until her dairymen shall deem it profitable to
shelter their stock in winter and supply them with green fodder in later
summer and fall. Whenever they shall generally devote one-quarter of
their lands to growing Chilian clover, sowed corn, beets, parsnips and
carrots, wherewith to feed their cows from August to February, they will
make twice or thrice their present product of butter and cheese, and
prove theirs one of the best dairy regions on earth. But habits,
especially bad ones, are stubborn things, and they will only come to
this wisdom by degrees.
Whether California would be a better country if it had rain in Summer, I
have already somewhat considered. That it would be more inviting and
attractive in aspect, especially to those unaccustomed to such sterility
through the latter half of each year, cannot be doubted. With such rain,
its natural pasturage would suffice for twice its present number of
cattle, while cultivation could be extended far up into the mountains,
on lands now deemed arable only when irrigated. Yet, on the other hand,
these dry summers have their advantages. By their aid, the most
bountiful harvests of hay and grain are secured in the best order, and
by means of the least possible labor. Weeds are not half so inveterate
and troublesome here as in rainy countries. A given amount of labor
accomplishes far more in any direction than at the east. The wise man
may start on a journey, of business or pleasure, without consulting his
barometer, and the fool without looking into his almanac. Nobody, save
in winter or early spring, ever casts an apprehensive look at the skies;
it may be cloudy or foggy, as it often is; but you know it cannot rain
till next November, and lay your plans accordingly. I have passed large
fields of standing wheat that have been dead-ripe for at least a month;
they will shell some when cut, but the grain will be bright and plump as
ever. All through the grain region, you see wheat that has been threshed
and sacked, and piled up in the open field where it grew, to await the
farmer’s convenience in taking it to market; and it may lie so for
months without damage, unless from squirrels or gophers. Wheat is sown
throughout the winter, though the earlier sown is the surer. Plowing
commences with the rains, and sowing should follow as closely as may be.
Very decent crops of “volunteer” grain are often grown, by simply
harrowing in the seed shelled out and lost in the process of
harvesting—sometimes even though the harrowing is omitted. But the
ground squirrels are apt to intercept this process by filling the
grain-fields with their holes, and eating up all the scattered grain and
a good deal more. They are a great pest in many localities, and
strychnine is freely and effectively employed to diminish their numbers.