counties amounts to ten thousand eight hundred and eighty-five; averaging, beans, thirty and peas twenty-eight bushels per acre.

POTATOES.-The number of acres of potatoes produced in twenty-five counties, is sixteen thousand four hundred and thirty-four. Averaging, in Alameda County, seventy bushels; Sacramento, one hundred; San Joaquin, two hundred; Siskiyou, one hundred, and Trinity three hundred bushels per

acre.

VEGETABLES.*-The returns of twenty-two counties exhibit fourteen thousand seven hundred and three acres, planted with vegetables. It is probable that the remaining counties will increase this amount to about forty-five thousand acres.

HAY.-The number of tons of hay cut in twenty-three counties, is ninetyfive thousand and sixty-six. This is a very small amount in proportion to the actual capacity of the State for the production of this article of produce.

BUTTER AND CHEESE.-The amount of butter and cheese produced in seven counties is, butter, four hundred and twenty-four thousand three hundred and twenty-six pounds. Cheese, two hundred and fifty-seven thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight pounds. The sales of butter, cheese and poultry produced in Sonoma, during the season of 1856, is estimated at five hundred thousand dollars.

COTTON AND TOBACCO.-The experiments of the past season have demonstrated the adaptation of the soil and climate of California to the culture of cotton and tobacco. Cotton has been raised with entire success in the Counties of Sacramento, San Diego and Shasta, and tobacco in the Counties of Alameda, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and Santa Cruz. Preparations are now being made in several of the agricultural districts of the State for the extensive cultivation of these important staples of the country.

Dr. Trask, in his report of the Geology of the State, 1855, referring to the soil and climate of the southern portion of the State, says:

"The climatal condition of these plains, and the adaptability of their soils, are such as we may reasonably expect, ere a few years shall pass, that cotton, coffee, tea, sugar and rice, the latter four articles particularly, will find a place in our catalogues of home productions, and the only impediment that now stands in the way of their immediate production is the high price of labor, which is consequent upon the sparseness of population."

*The following specimens are inserted as an evidence of the capacity of the soil of California, most of which were exhibited at the State Agricultural Fairs of 1855-'56:

"Two pumpkins, from Sacramento, weighing two hundred and ten and two hundred and forty pounds; a beet, grown by Col. Hall, of Sacramento City, weighing seventy-three pounds; a carrot, weighing ten pounds, measuring one foot and eight inches in circumference, and three feet and three inches in length-there were fifty in the same bed of equal size, the seeds were sown on June 25th, and the carrots dug September 20th; a tomato, seventeen inches in circumference; a squash, weighing one hundred and forty-one pounds; an onion, weighing two pounds and fifteen ounces, and measuring twenty-two inches in circumference; a cornstalk, twenty-one feet and nine inches in hight; watermelons, from near Nevada-twenty-seven gave an aggregate of five hundred and fifty pounds; a sweet potato, from San Jose, weighing eleven pounds and two ounces; an Irish potate, from Bodega, weighing seven and a quarter pounds; a bunch of potatoes, of the Oregon red variety, from a single eye, weighing ten pounds, grown at the forks of Turnback Creek, near Sonora; grapes-several bunches, weighing over four pounds each; peas, second crop, fine and good, from Los Angeles: a citron lemon, sixteen and a half by eighteen and three-quarter inches in circumference, weighing two pounds and fourteen ounces, from Los Angeles; fig tree-a slip one foot in length and five-eighths of an inch in thickness was planted April 1st, and in the month of September following was eleven feet and six inches high, and nine and a quarter inches in circumference at the base, with a corresponding growth of branches; peach trees, in twenty-eight months from the planting of the seed, bore fruit over nine inches in circumference, and weighing from seven to eight and a half ounces; there were thirty-four of these large peaches on one tree; an apple, measuring fifteen and one-third inches each way, weighing twenty-three ounces, grown in the Yamhill Orchard."

Experiments have been made in the culture of tobacco which have proved highly successful and satisfactory-the Cuban variety is found to flourish as well here as upon its native soil. The great consumption of this article in California will render its cultivation an object of some considerable importance, and as so little care and labor are necessary in raising it here, it is more than probable that but a few years will elapse before it will find a place in our commercial tables, as an article of home production, and perhaps of export.

SUGAR CANE AND SUGAR BEET.-The cultivation of the sugar cane has been successfully made for the past five years, in Los Angeles County, but in such limited quantities that no preparations have as yet been made for its manufacture into sugar.

The soil and climate of California is believed to be well adapted for the raising of the sugar beet and its conversion into sugar, and arrangements have been effected by an incorporated company, with a sufficient capital to test its practicability. The operations of the company are to be carried on in the County of Santa Clara-one of the most flourishing agricultural districts of the State-and from the well known energy and experience of the gentlemen associated in the enterprise, there is but little doubt of the undertaking meeting with entire success.

CULTIVATION OF RICE.-It is believed, by those practically acquainted with the cultivation of rice, that the extensive marsh lands of this State may be made available for that purpose, and, in order to test its practicability, several companies have been formed, and arrangements are already in progress for the commencement of operations.

It is well known that vast tracts of the marsh lands of China have been converted into fertile rice fields, which are now of great value and importance, in maintaining the supply of this necessary article of food. The great consumption of California alone should be sufficient to enlist the attention of those persons interested in the development of the resources of the State.

MULBERRY AND ITS CULTIVATION.-The experiments already made for the cultivation of the mulberry in this State have been very successful. The following extract from the Report of the State Agricultural Society for 1856, will exhibit the progress already made by one of the principal agriculturists of the State:

"The Committee cannot pass the garden of Mr. Prevost without a particular notice of his efforts to introduce into our State the cultivation of the mulberry, and we may safely say he is the pioneer in this new work of silk raising. The Committee most warmly commend this enterprise, and in noticing his fine plantation of over twenty-five thousand mulberry trees, they feel that at least a just and appreciative notice of his laudable exertions is due to him. Mr. Prevost assured us that no country in the world was more favorably adapted to the raising of the silk-worm than California, from the fact of the absence of electricity, which is peculiarly injurious to the worm; and another favorable feature is the dryness of our atmosphere. From all the facts gathered thus far, we may look to a new era by the introduction of the mulberry culture, as the certain forerunner of silk manufacture."

1. FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES.

The number of fruit trees set forth in the table on page 206, is the best evidence of the adaptation of the soil and climate of California for the production of fruit trees. Not only the varieties grown in the Eastern States but those of the tropical climates have been successfully cultivated, and in such abundance as to surprise many of the most experienced fruit growers of the State. The following extract from the Report of the State Agricultural Society, for 1856, of the operations of the Messrs. Thompson's farm, in Solano County, thirty miles from San Francisco, will convey some idea of what California is at the present time, as a fruit growing State:

"We have produced apples this year of beauty and flavor unsurpassed even in the far famed State of New York; while the nectarine, apricot and gooseberry have so improved, by their removal to California soil, as scarcely to be recognized as the same fruit. With foreign grapes, too, we are much gratified. We have produced in the open air the grape from Malaga and the South of France, the size, beauty and flavor of which would be hard to excel in their native countries.

We are in a favored country for fruit growing. We grow the pomegranate, olive and fig, side by side with the apple, pear and quince; the grape of Malaga with the hardy Isabella, Diana and Catawba; the almond and olive with the black walnut and shellbark; the magnolia with the sugar maple and elm-the natives of the far North and the far South grow side by side, and all flourish well."

GRAPE CULTURE.-The cultivation of the grape and its manufacture into wines and brandies is rapidly assuming a degree of importance, and is increasing to such an extent, that these products must soon become one of the most reliable and lucrative branches of the resources of the State. The results of the past season have established the fact that every description of wines, from ordinary claret to the sparkling Catawba, may be manufactured from the California grape. The manufacture of wines and brandies has already become an important branch of the resources of several counties of the State, and in the City of Los Angeles alone over four hundred thousand gallons were manufactured during the last year.

This State presents an inviting field for the cultivation of the grape. The experience of the past few years has proved conclusively that in no country is this fruit produced in greater variety or abundance, and if future seasons exhibit the same ratio of increase as that of the past, California will soon become one of the most extensive wine-producing States in the world.

The number of vines in cultivation in this State, as exhibited in the table of fruit trees is one million five hundred and thirty-one thousand two hundred and twenty-four. Estimating each to yield, when fully matured, fifteen pounds, (instances are frequent of twenty-five and thirty pounds) and that each gallon of wine requires fifteen pounds of grapes, and there is a product of one and a half millions of gallons of wine, which, if disposed of at the sum paid last season for the entire crop in Ohio, one dollar and fifty cents, per gallon, would add two and a quarter millions of dollars to the resources of the State.

TABLE

Exhibiting the number of acres of Land under cultivation in California, during the year 1856, with the amount of Wheat, Barley and Oats, raised thereon.

COUNTIES.

No. Acres
under

cultiva'n. Acres. Bushels. Acres. Bushels. Acres. Bushels.

Alameda..... 56,109 22,052 462,134 20,000 918,000 4,200| 260,500

Amador

Butte

Calaveras *

5,649 800 28,000 12,466 5,446 165,000 7,724 1,600

25,495

2,057 67,131

|Colusa.

4,408 114,602

Contra Costa..

12,657

8,611 301,385

2,265 135,900| 548

10,960

578,963 176,869 3,979,032 154,674 4,639,678 37,6021,263,359

* Estimated by the Delegation from that County in the Legislature.

+ Inclosed, 60,000 acres.

Inclosed, 40,000 acres,

TABLE

Exhibiting the number of Live Stock, the Wheat, Barley, Oats and Wine produced by the different States, as set forth by the Census of 1850.

Michigan.

58,506

70

274,497

Mississippi

115,460 54,547

733.970

Missouri

225,319 41,667

New Hampshire.

34,233

63,955

New Jersey.
New York.

North Carolina..
Ohio..
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island..
South Carolina..
Tennessee
Texas

Vermont

Virginia

Wisconsin

11,501 3,820,044

45,483 5,655,014 14,055 25,093 1,524,345 420 95,343 8,201,311|

8,093

54,598
352,911 4,494,680
81,119

417
296,259 151,731

31,211 112,385

746,435 75,249 2,866,056 304,929 1,582,734 137,990 228 1,503,288 791,510 762,511 1,702,625 2,981,652 9,631 5,278,079 10,563 19 267,910 384,756 63,487 185,658 70,256 973,381 4,089 211,261 160,488 250,370 1,601,190 6,492 3,378,063 447,014 963 1,877,639 3,453, 241 1,018,252 13,121,498 3,585,059 26,552,814 148,693 25,259 693,510 595,249 1,812,813 2,130, 102 463,397 3,423 1,358,947 3,942,929 1,964,770 14,487,351 350,398 2,259 1,153,946 1,822,357 1,040,366 15,367,691 6,168 1 36,262 44.296 19,509 49 97,171 37,483 777,686 285,551 1,065,503 1,066,277 270,636 75,303 750,762 811,591 3,104,800 1,619,386 76,760 12,463 930,114 100,530 692,022 41,729 61,057 218 348,848 1,014,122 66,296 535.955 272,403 21,483 1,076,269 1,310,004 1,829,843 11,212,616

30,179 156 183,433 124,896 159,276 4,286,131 209,692 3,414,672

Totals...... 4,319,481 549,861 18,288,543 21,327,055 30,313,381 99,950,9125,163,920 146,473,344 217,023

TABLE

Exhibiting the Average Price of Flour, Wheat, Barley and Oats for each Month at San Francisco, from January, 1851, to December, 1856.

[Compiled from the San Francisco Prices Current and Shipping List.]

+ Sales of Flour in barrels for the last ten days of December, 1852, $38 and $42.