To
produce maize, potatoes, and other garden vegetables, irrigation is
necessary. Oats and mustard grow spontaneously, with such rankness as
to be considered nuisances upon the soil. I have forced my way through
thousands of acres of these, higher than my head when mounted on a
horse. The oats grow to the summits of the hills, but they are not here
so tall and rank as in the valleys.
The varieties of grasses are greater than on the Atlantic side of the
continent, and far more nutritious. I have seen seven different kinds
of clover, several of them in a dry state, depositing a seed upon the
ground so abundant as to cover it, which is lapped up by the cattle and
horses and other animals, as corn or oats, when threshed, would be with
us. All the grasses, and they cover the entire country, are heavily
seeded, and, when ripe, are as fattening to stock as the grains which
we feed to our beef, horses, and hogs. Hence it is unnecessary to the
sustenance or fattening of stock to raise corn for their consumption.
Agriculture is in its rudest state. The farming implements which have
been used by the Californians, with few exceptions, are the same as
were used three hundred years ago, when Mexico was conquered by Cortez.
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