Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands

o-ahead Californians are actually diking and reclaiming similar and,

wed." Until within five or six years these lands attracted but little attention. It was known that they were extremely fertile, but it was thought that the cost and uncertainty of reclaiming them were

ws ten feet high in a season, and decays every year. The Tule lands are in part the low lands along the greater rivers, but in part they are islands, lying in the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and separated from each other by deep, narrow "sloughs," or "slews" as they are called-branches of these rive

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land, along the Sacramento and its affluents, there is a great deal of

twenty per cent. was paid down, or twenty cents per acre; and this money, less some small charges for recording the transfer and for inspecting the reclamation, is returned by the State to t

ccess, and it was not until a law was passed empowering the majority of owners of overflowed lands in any place to form a reclamation district, choose a Bo

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do the work thoroughly, the high floods of 1871-72 having shown the farmers and land-owners that they must build high and strong levees, or else lose all, or at least much, of their labor and outlay. During the spring of 1872 I saw huge b

stipulated rates, and themselves hire their countrymen for the actual labor. This subdivision, to which the perfect organization of Chinese labor readily lends itself, is very

outside is a space of low marsh, which presently fills with willow and cotton-wood. You may sail a

ls are self-acting tide-gates for drainage; these are made of the redwood of the coast, which does not rot in the water. The rise and fall of the tides is about six feet. The levees have been in some places troubled with beaver, which

lar. It is not unusual for parts of a levee to sink down, but I could hear of no case of capsizing. The Levee Board of a district appoints levee-masters, whose d

up on piles, for security against a break and overflow; and beyond a great track of level land, two or three or five feet b

land is covered with dry tules, the fire is set so easily that a single match will burn a thousand acres, the strong trade-wind which blows up the river and across these lands carrying the fire rapidly. If the dry tules have been washed off, a Chinaman is sent to d

about thirty pounds of wheat to the acre, though I believe it would be better to sow more thickly. Then comes a band or flock of about five hundred sheep. These are driven over the surface in a compact body, and at no great rate of speed, and it is surprising how readily they learn wha

oes not always do so, because, as I myself saw, it is often badly and irregularly burned over, a

the plowman. It is drawn by four horses, who have to be shod with broad wooden shoes, usuall

years are needed to reduce the ground to its best condition for tillage, and the difference in this respect between newly-burned or se

ce of a thorough scientific agriculturist, like Professor Johnson of Yale, would be very valuable to them. Now, they know only that the land when burned over will

rse from the lowest part of the ditch, lay in firm sods or tussocks. These, however, seem to decay pretty rapidly on exposure to the air. The drainage is not usually deeper than four feet, and in places the water-

and his fields were consequently in the finest condition. Here I saw a three-hundred-acre field of wheat, as fine as wheat could be. He thought he should get about forty-five bushels per acre this year. He ha

, plums, grapes, apricots-all the fruits-do well on this soil. With us I think the pear would not do well on peat; but here it withstood last year's flood, which broke a levee and overflowed Mr. Bige

. Mr. Bigelow told me that he once sowed alfalfa in February with wheat, and took off forty-five bushels of wheat per acre, and a ton and a h

e lands-they can put in their crops at a

sh water, running along the boundary as far as the eye could reach, the level of the levee broken occasionally by tide-gates. The prospect would have been monotonous had we not had at one side the lovely mo

It is the market grape here. Trees have not grown to a great size on the tule lands, but bees are very fond of the wild-flowers which abound in the unreclaime

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en into the ground with mauls. Farm laborers receive in the tules thirty dollars per month and

year, and sold, he told me, from one-tenth of an acre, two hundred and sixty three pounds of prepared ramie, for fifteen cents per pound. He used, to dress it, a machine made in California, which several persons have assured me works well and cheaply, a fact which ramie growers in Louisiana may like to kn

they bear, and their nearness to market-ships could load at almost any of the islands-I suppose the price is not high; but a farmer ou

d diked for less than six dollars per acre; and this sum is regarded, I believe, by the State Commissioners as

he grizzlies have gone to the mountains. One of the curiosities hereabouts is the ark, or floating house, used by the hunters, which you see anchored or moored in the sloughs: in these they

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