USA > California > Tulare County > History of Tulare County, California with biographical sketches > Part 28
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The culture of berries can be conducted on the same gen- eral plan, whether they be strawberries, blackberries, or rasp- berries; the distance apart of the rows, etc., to be determined by the species and size of growth. I give the rule for
STRAWBERRY CULTURE.
Select a piece of ground perfectly level. Plow into ridges. three feet apart, by throwing four furrows together, and leav- ing a double furrow eighteen inches or more in depth between the ridges. Set your strawberry vines a foot apart on the top of the ridges. Fill the furrows rounding-up full of stable manure (using part straw if manure is scarce ), leaving only a hands-breadth uncovered on the top of the ridges where the vines are set. Then turn on the water in the beginning of the dry season. filling up the ditches, completely saturating tlie
manure, leaving only a few inches of the top of each ridge out of water. Such an irrigation will last for twenty days, when it must be repeated. This is all the work you have to do. No hoeing : no plowing out: no cutting off' of runners, only irri- gate and pick your berries. In our climate, one square rod of ground treated in this way will give a larger return whether the fruit be for market or use, than five square rods of ordi- nary culture. Vines transplanted from such rows possess a vigor and productiveness that it would take two years to develop in the dwarf, burnt-up things from runners of the ordinary strawberry bed.
NATIVE FRUITS.
Prickly gooseberries of large size and fine flavor abound in the mountain forests, but the prickles or spines have to be burned off before they can be used. Smooth gooseberries of fair size and quality are also found both in the Sierras and Coast Range. Edible currants are found in several mountain localities. Serviceberries and whortleberries are also found in small quantities in the mountains. Strawberries are found on Dinkey Creek and elsewhere at that altitude. Thimble-berries thornless raspberries) of superior flavor grow in the Sierras, but are productive in only a few damp cañons. Sorbus trees (Pirus sambucifolia) grow in the Sierras, but I know nothing of their fruit.
Sorbus domesticus, from Turkey, valuable for its fruit, grows well here on my farin. Mahonias are found on the upper San Joaquin-not productive. Two wild pluins grow in the Sierras, Prunus subcordata, and P. Emarginata, var mollis, and a cherry, P. demissa, none of them of great value. An evergreen plum, of possible value for hedges or ornament, with edible fruit, P. ilicifolia, is said to grow in some of the cañons on the west line of the county. Elderberries of fine quality are found along foot-hill creeks. Wild grape vines are also found. not productive, fruit inferior. Filberts are quite plentiful in some places in the Sierras, nuts of excellent qual- ity. The only valuable accession to cultivated fruits is the KING'S RIVER BLACKBERRY. Myself and others have trans- planted to our orchards the best of these. They are of medium size, very productive, superior flavor, and what is most valu- able they are twenty to thirty days earlier than varieties usually cultivated. I believe they are the earliest blackberry in the world.
FORAGE PLANTS.
Our native grusses are not valuable. The most valuable native forage plant is the " FILREE," of which we have three species, Erodium cicutorium, the most plentiful. It covers the earth with its rank growth in springtime: E. macrophyl- lum, the species that makes, by its suminer growth, the round " mats," from a few inches to a foot across ; E. moschatum, the largest, but least plentiful, easily recognizable by its nearly entire leaves and strong musky smell. Geranium Caroli-
142
BOTANICAL FEATURES OF THE COUNTY.
nianum, resembles the last, but is distinguished by its lack of musk, and turning red on approach of the dry season. ERI- TRICHIUMS (the most common of which was described as an early winter flower), of which here are at least four species, commonly known to stockmen as " White-blossom," are nearly equal in feed-value to the "Filrees." Closely related to these, of larger growth, with yellow or orange-colored blos- soms, are the AMSINCKIAS, of nearly equal valne as forage plants. The common species, A. spectabilis (known as “ Fat- grass"), is, when young and tender, a good pot-herb and salad. On the Posé Chiné, the " WILD CABBAGE," Caulanthus cras- sicaulus, holds a similar plaee as a forage and food plant. In exotic feed-plants our county ranks high. Here is the "Hirs- chorn," a millet from the Danube; a branching Sorghum from the shores of the Caspian ; Durras from Egypt and China ; Penicillaria (a rank millet) from India; Imphces, from South- ern Africa; Prickly Comfrey, from Prussia (not a success here); and greater than any of these, Medicago satira, from ancient Greece, brought through Spain and the Spanish pos- sessions in America, hence it has come to us under its Spanish name, ALFALFA. The loss of stock from bloat, caused by eat- ing it when in most active growth, detracts from its value. Bloat can be prevented by giving stock access to hay or straw ; or better, by having imphee, sorghum, or millet, growing with the alfalfa so as to constitute from five to ten per cent of their fced. The best grass for this purpose is probably the EVER- GREEN MILLET, which has perennial roots, yields as much feed as alfalfa, and surpasses it in ability to thrive under conditions of drought, heat, frost, or flood that would kill even alfalfa.
MEDICINAL HERBS,
The Yerba Santa (Eriodiction glutinosum) a pulmonary remedy, a shrub, abounds in the hills. Yerba Mansa (Anemopsis Californica), a sort of "curc-all" among the Spaniards. A decoetion of the root is an excellent application to saddle-galls and other sores. It is found in abundance in Riverdale. Chia (Salvia Columbaria) is found on sandy alkali land. The seed of this infused in water was the Spanish remedy for dysentery. Salvia carduacea, the more common species, with thistle-like spines, was also similarly used, but considered inferior. Wild carrot (Daucus pusillus) the chewed or pounded leaves were by the Spaniards an outward applica- tion for rattlesnake bites; recognizable from lcaf and seed resembling the cultivated carrot; root small. SPIKENARD (Aralia Californica), found in damp cañons ; has large mueil- aginous roots; said to have demulcent qualities. FALSE HELLEBORE ( Veratrum Californicum) found in meadows of the Sierras 4,000 to 8,000 feet ; root poisonous; used in medi- cine; also, when dried and ground to powder, valuable for gardner's use as an insecticide.
Thus closes the valuable article kindly furnished us by Prof. Sanders.
Wild Berries, Fruits and Roots.
Another writer furnishes us with some additional matter 'on the general subject of Botany and especially on ferns, a por- tion of which is here given :-
There are wild grapes, blackberries, gooseberries, huckle- berries, raspberries, salmonberries, and strawberries. The rasp- berry grew wild, but never in the great quantities in which the blackberry was found. The latter, for a great many years, was quite a source of revenue to the Indian squaws, who gathered and sold them to the whites. There are a few left yet, but the great bulk of the vines have had to give place to pro- ducts of greater value. Our wild blackberry is not so large as the tame, nor as the wild berry of the Eastern States, but it is of a very much better flavor than either. The wild grape grows all through the timber along the river. The berry is small and very full of seed, but when perfectly ripe has a very fine flavor. It is better for jelly than any other.
CHLOROGALUM POMERIDIANUM .- The amole, or soap plant has an onion-like, bulbous root, which, when rubbed in water, makes a lather like soap, and is good for removing dirt.
It was extensively used for washing, by the Indians and Spanish Californians, previous to the American conquest. The amole has a stock four or five feet high, from which branches about eighteen inches long spring out. The branches are cov- ered with buds which open in the night, beginning, at the root of the boughs, about four inches of a branch opening at a time. The next night the buds of another four inches open, and so on. The dry bulb abounds in tough fibers, which are separated from the other material, and used as a substitute for hair in mattresscs.
A truffle, or a root resembling it, is found in the valleys. The grizzly bear considers it a delicacy, and frequently digs it up. LILIORHIZA LANCEOLATA .- It is among the earliest spring flowers. Has a rather unpleasant odor.
It is among the carliest of our spring blooming bulbs, with a habit and appearance slightly similar to the spring snowdrop, which is so much prized in the Eastern States. Its flower stem, which has but few leaves, is from six to fifteen inches high; the scattered leaves run into bracts near the summit, from whose axils spring the flowers, which at first appear to project outward, but gradually droop with age.
The blooming bulbs often grow at a depth of a foot or more in a stiff adobe, and as the bulbs are composed of several loosely coherent scales, it is often very difficult to obtain them entire. They are a elear waxy white.
CREEPING PLANTS AND VINES.
Along the lower land of the river and sloughs, and among the timber, the wild pea grows to a very great height.
There is a wild hemp growing upon the lowlands, from which the Indians used to make fish-nets, and rope.
143
THE CLIMATE OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
Agreeable Climate.
· THERE is one subject upon which the true Californian never wearies of dilating -- " the elimate." Be it in the ice-bound regions of the Sierras at midwinter, or in the heat and mid- summer of the great valleys; in the fogs of the coast, or in the sand-storms of the plains, he will assert "it is the finest climate in the world."
Climate, more than any other one property, determines the comparative and intrinsie worth of a country for habitation. Every other condition may be, to a less or greater degree, altered by human agency; climate remains a steadfast servant to its mistress, Nature. The soil may be unfruitful; timber wanting ; the water unfit for use; man remedies such defects, and nations are planted in the midst of these adverse sur- roundings. Climate, unaltered, outlasts the labor of races.
In the location, then, of a permanent settlement and the choice of a home, climatie conditions form the first and chief factor. Men pierce the frozen barriers of the North or brave the wasting torrid heats in pursuit of wealth, only that they may dwell in comfort where the seasons come and go mildly. Human adventurers are not bound by frost and heat; and yet homes are not made of choice too near the extremes of either.
Enough seasonable variation exists to make the raee vigor- ous, to produce grains and fruits of the finest quality, and the best varieties of domestic stock. At the same time out-door labor suffers little interruption by reason of weather stress.
The most dense population, the highest intelligence, and the most general prevalence of the useful arts, are found along those isotherms opposing the fewest rigors of elimate to be over- come. Here, too, national and individual wealth are aecumu- lated in the largest abundance. For physical discomforts re- quire less expenditure in food, elothing, and shelter, and thus subtract less from the sum total of labor, leaving a maximum to be added to the individual and general capital. The north temperate region, accordingly, affords resources for the highest individual and national welfare.
THIS CLIMATE COMPARED WITH OTHERS.
To realize the advantages of our climate, we have only to compare it with the climate of other States and counties. At Cineinnati, in January, the minimum temperature is ten de- grees, that is, ten degrees below zero, or forty-two degrees be- low the freezing point, or, as we say, forty-two degrees of frost, whereas, in most of the valleys in California, and particularly here in this valley, we do not have more than two degrees of frost, and snow never, except in two instances within the last ten years, and then only enough to cover the ground, and re- maining only a few hours.
The mean temperature in Cincinnati, in January, is twenty-
one degrees, Fahrenheit, indicating that the average day in that month has eleven degrees of frost, while the average Jan- uary day here is at least twenty-two degrees warmer than in Cineinnati. At Richmond, Virginia, in the same latitude with us, the minimum temperature in January is two degrees, that is, two degrees above zero, being something like forty degrees below the greatest eold observed here in the same latitude. There are other important points in our favor when compared with the other side of the continent-the difference in the temperature of the summer nights, which are oppressively hot in the Atlantic States, and so deliciously cool and pleasant here as to secure refreshing slumber.
REASON OF AGREEABLE CLIMATE.
One reason of this is the difference in the atmospheric moist- nre, which has a great influenee upon comfort in hot weather, and which effects all climates. The air is so dry here that the perspiration is carried away rapidly, leaving the body cool and refreshed, but with our Eastern friends, the abundance of moisture prevents or checks evaporation, and there is more discomfort with a temperature of ninety-eight degrees there than with 110 degrees here.
When people there are suffering with prostration from sun- stroke, we here find comfort and safety in the gentle breeze which fans our cheeks, and wipes the perspiration from our bodies, leaving us cool and refreshed, and beyond the reach of the sun's most oppressive heat.
Our climate rivals that of Lombardy with its rich fields of the olive, the fig, and the grape; that of Niee, with its mild and salubrious air, sought as it is by the thousands of health- seekers from all parts of the world; that of Dijon, the cham- pagne regions of France and Italy, and Naples, whose sunny skies and bahny breezes have been the subject from remote ages of many a poet's song.
CLIMATE OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
To the inhabitant of the Eastern States, says Dr. J. P. Wid- ney, southern California is a new region, where, he has heard, his harsh winters are unknown, and where the orange flourishes as in its native home. When he reads of it, it is the account of men who have gone with eyes free from any pre-existing preju- dice, and have told what they saw. Of the people of north- ern California, however, comparatively few have ever visited the southern portion of the State, while they have learned just enough of the climatic peculiarities of the coast to know the general law that rain-fall diminishes as they go south. They observe that the average annual rain-fall of Sacramento is eighteen inches, while that of Stockton upon the south is sixteen and eight-tenths inehes.
In the Tulare country, which is still farther to the south it has decreased to only six and a half inches. They reason that as what is known as distinctively southern California lics
144
HOW MOUNTAINS EFFECT THE CLIMATE.
yet beyond those lands of steadily failing moisture, it must be still more arid. They have not stopped to inquire whether there may not be other influenees at work ehanging or sus- pending the action of the law.
-For a proper understanding of the elimate of California it is essential that the general elimatie laws of the whole State should be studied. The most strongly marked feature in the physical geography of California, and the one which at once catches the eye of the observant traveler, is the faet that its mountains, for hundreds of miles, run parallel with the eoast, and that there are two of these great ehains, one rising abruptly almost from the sea line, like a long wall, with only here and there a shallow coast valley, as at Santa Cruz, lying outside the range and facing directly upon the ocean. This is known as the Coast Rangc.
THE SIERRA NEVADA.
The great uplifted crest of the Sierra Nevada, which, for hundreds of miles, in unbroken ehain, forms the horizon line upon the east, erossed only, at long distances, by some rugged pass, leading to the interior basin of the continent.
This range, with its great altitude, its heavy snows, and its immense condensing power, is the source of all the important rivers of California. From it eome the Sacramento and San Joaquin, with their tributaries, and in southern California, the Los Angeles, the San Gabriel, and the Santa Ana.
These two ranges of mountains divide the lands of the State into two classes of widely different climatic features- the humid eoast valleys, lying outside of the Coast Range, facing upon the ocean, and marked by a comparatively great precipitation of moisture and slight evaporation ; and the more arid interior valleys, lying between the two ranges, and char- acterized by just the reverse-a light rain-fall and an exces- sive evaporation.
The great interior basin of California, the Sacramento, and San Joaquin, together with several smaller valleys, as the Santa Clara and Napa, formed by a local splitting of the coast mountains into two ranges, drains outward to the ocean through the gap which forms the inlet to San Francisco Bay, while through the same gap flows back the cool air-current which gives the daily sea-breeze to these valleys.
BROKEN MOUNTAIN RANGES.
Out of the broken eonfusion of the Tehachapi and Tejon Mountains, where the Sierra and the Coast Ranges seem to be- come inextricably entangled, the Sierra at length emerges, and skirting the Mojave Desert upon the west, turns eastward under the local name of the Sierra Madre as the northern wall of the Los Angeles and San Bernardino country; then turning again southward along the western rim of the Colorado Desert, goes on to form the backbone of the peninsula of Lower California.
A stray fragment of the Coast Range rises again for a while, under the name of the Santa Monica Mountains; joins
the dividing ridge between the westerly plains of the Los Angeles country and the San Fernando Valley ; breaks down entirely where the San Fernando Valley opens into the Los Angeles ; gives outlet to the Los Angeles River; then rises as a low, irregular range of hills between Los Angeles and the San Gabriel country-hills having an elevation of only 200 or 300 feet; breaks down again completely after a few miles, where the broad valley of the San Gabriel comes out from the Sierra, irrigating with its waters the fertile, low- lying lands of El Monte and Los Nietos.
The hills rise again as a broken range, gradually attaining to a height in seattered peaks of 1,000 or 2,000 feet, but torn asunder where the Santa Ana, coming from its souree in the San Bernardino portion of the Sierra, and watering upon its way the San Bernardino and Riverside countries,* bursts through to the lands of Santa Ana and Anaheim and the coast plain, and on to the sea. Beyond, this broken, wandering remnant of the Coast Range becomes again, but this time hopelessly, entangled with and lost in the Sierra. This break- ing down of the Coast Range throws the whole valley system of southern California, known collectively as the Los Angeles country, open to the sea, making it practically a vast system of coast valleys, with the Sierra as a background; and it is to be classed with the Humboldt and Santa Cruz Counties in elimate, but from the sheltering mountains and the more southern lati- tude milder in temperature, and in extent upon an infinitely larger scale. About 3,000 square miles of level valley land open out to the sea at this point.
COLD WINDS CUT OFF.
The sharp trend eastward of the coast line south of Point Concepcion also brings the sea nearer to the Sierra, making its influenee more felt, while the deflection of the Sierra from a north and south direction to alnost due east turns it into a huge barrier, raised directly across the path of the cold north wind, which sweeps the upper portion of the State. Under the shelter of its peaks, ranging in clevation from 6,000 to 11,000 feet, these southern valleys nestle, looking from the snow-clad crests above them out toward the warm southern sea.
The exemption of southern California from the working of the general law of a continuously diminishing rain-fall, and an even more arid climate as you go south, lies in the fact that it is essentially a coast country, and not a continuation of the San Joaquin and Tulare Valleys. The mountains which shut those valleys off from the sea are, as already shown, broken down and lost in southern California. The tendency to a reversion to the interior type is seen, however, in the San Fernando Valley, which is partly shut off' from the ocean by the Santa Monica Mountains belonging to the coast system, which is not so shut off. Even in the San Fernando Valley the elevation of the Coast Range is so slight and the breaks
*The special features of these local elimates is given elsewhere.
145
CLIMATE FOR CORN, VINE, AND ORANGE.
so open, that the only result is to shelter it partially from the fogs and give a somewhat drier air and higher summer tem- perature. The shelter is only enough to make this valley the most noted wheat region of southern California; not enough to rank it with the parched and unreliable San Joaquin and Tulare Plains.
The Mojave Desert may be looked upon, not as the geologi- eal, but as the climatic, southern continuation of the great in- terior valley of California.
The following table, giving the temperature and humidity, month by month, of Sacramento and Los Angeles, are com- piled from the last published annual report of the United States Signal Service :-
MEAN TEMPERATURE FOR EACH MONTH, FROM JULY, 1877, TO
JUNE, 1878.
Month.
Sacramento. Degrees.
Los Angeles. Degrees.
Sacramento. Humidity.
Los Angeles. Humidity.
July
75.7
71.1
43.0
61.8
August.
. 73.0
70.1
46.0
64.5
September
72.8
69.8
43.0
62.1
October
62.7
63.4
49.0
67.4
November
.53.9
62.1
72.0
46.5
December
47.8
55.3
74.0
56.4
January
49.0
54.1
79.0
61.0
February
51.0
54.6
80.0
69.3
March .
56.5
55.8
74.0
72.9
April
59.8
58.0
65.0
69.8
May
. 66.4
62.0
57.0
70.4
June
73.0
64.7
53.0
72.0
Annual mean.
61.3
64.5
Number of days at Sacramento with temperature above ninety degrees, fifty-five; highest temperature recorded, 103 degrees.
Number of days at Los Angeles with temperature above ninety degrees, four; highest temperature recorded, ninety- three degrees.
AVERAGE ANNUAL RAIN-FALL.
Sacramento 18 inches; Stoekton, 16.8 inches; south end of San Joaquin Valley, 6.5 inches (these three measurements are taken from the official report of the State Engineer, 1880) ; Los Angeles, 17.97 inches (average for the last eight years, as shown by rain-guage kept by Mr. Ducommun, at Los An- geles).
The San Diego average from 1871 to 1881 was 9 59 inches and the average number of rainy days per year was forty. During five years the mercury rose above 80° only fifty-eight days, and only once reached 100°. The San Diego elimate is given more fully elsewhere.
A comparison of the foregoing table shows Los Angeles to possess, as contrasted with Sacramento, an atmosphere warmer and drier in winter, and cooler and moister in summer, while the table of precipitation shows the average annual rain-fall of eighteen inches at Sacramento diminishing as you go south, in accordance with the law already mentioned, to 16.8 at Stock-
ton, and in the Tulare and Kern Valleys, still farther south, to only 6.5 inches. Yet at Los Angeles, in southern California, it has suddenly risen again to 17.97 inches almost the same as at Sacramento. The cause of this has already been explained in the first part of this article.
FOGS AND HUMIDITY.
The warmer winter in southern California, as compared with the more northern portion of the State, and the greater exemption from cold, drying winds, make this amount practically equiv- alent to a larger rain-fall in Upper California, as vegetation is not so much retarded by the cold of December and January, but the whole of the winter becomes a growing season. The growing season is also prolonged by the fogs and humidity of a late cool spring. The heat of summer sets in late. The season is several weeks behind that of Sacramento. Almost nightly, until July, a heavy fog rolls in, wrapping the more open portions of the country in a cloud of mist-at times almost a drizzling rain-which does not lift until several hours after sunrise.
DAILY SEA-BEEZE INLAND.
The daily sea-breeze, only slightly obstructed by the low fragments of the Coast Range, finds its way to all portions of the system of valleys, saving them from the excessive tem- perature and the rapid evaporation of the Sacramento and San Joaquin country. Winter flannels are only changed to a lighter summer flannel.
Another factor enters into the problem of the climate of southern California. The influence of the Sonora summer's rain-current is sensibly felt everywhere south of the Tehachapi Mountains.
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