“ He possessed great influence in Mexico and Madrid. “The theory of the mission system,” says H. H. Bancroft, “was to make the savages work out their own salvation and that of the priests also.” The last phrase scarcely does justice to the truly humane and devout intentions of the missionaries; but in truth the mission system was a complete failure save in the accumulation of material wealth. Economically the missions were the blood and life of the province. ”

“ The high value of realty in San Francisco naturally offered extraordinary inducements to fraud, and the largest part of the city was for years involved in fraudulent claims, and its peace broken by “squatter”-troubles. Twenty or thirty years of the state’s life were disturbed by these controversies. Land monopoly is an evil of large proportions in California to-day, but it is due to the laxness of the United States government in enabling speculators to accumulate holdings and not to the original extent of Mexican grants. ”

“ The essential character of California’s economic life has been determined by the successive predominance of grass, gold, grain and fruits. Omitting the second it may be truly said that the order of agricultural development has been mainly one of blind experiment or fortuitous circumstances. Staple products have changed with increasing knowledge of climatic conditions, of life-zones and of the fitness of crops; first hides and tallow, then wool, wheat, grapes (which in the early eighteen-nineties were the leading fruit) , deciduous orchard fruits, and semi-tropical citrus fruits successively. ”

“ California has the greatest area of irrigated land of any state in the Union, and offers the most complete utilization of resources. In the south artesian wells, and in the Great Valley the rivers of the Sierra slope, are the main source of water-supply. On nearly all lands irrigated some crops will grow in ordinary seasons without irrigation, but it is this that makes possible selection of crops ”

“ Small fruits, orchard fruits, hay, garden products and grains are decreasingly dependent on irrigation; wheat, which was once California’s great staple, is (for good, but not for best results) comparatively independent of it,—hence its early predominance in Californian agriculture, due to this success on arid lands since taken over for more remunerative irrigated crops.
Agriculture.—The spread of irrigation and of intensive cultivation, and the increase of small farms during the last quarter of the 19th century, have made California what it is to-day. ”

“ A vivid realization of the industrial revolution in the state is to be gained from the reflection that in 1875 California was pre-eminent only for gold and sheep; that the aggregate mineral output thirty years later was more than a third greater than then, and that nevertheless the value of farm produce at the opening of the 20th century exceeded by more than $100,000,000 the value of mineral produce, and exceeded by $50,000,000 the most generous estimate of the largest annual gold output in the annals of the state. ”

“ Rapid settlement, excessive prices, reckless waste of money, and wild commercial ventures that glutted San Francisco with all objects usable and unusable made the following years astounding from an economic point of view; but not less bizarre was the social development, nor less extraordinary the problems of state-building in a society “morally and socially tried as no other American community ever has been tried” (Royce) . There was of course no home life in early California. In 1850 women numbered 8% of the population, but only 2% in the mining counties. ”

“ Forests.—The forests and agricultural crops of the state demand particular notice. In 1900 the woodland was estimated by the United States census at 22% of the state’s area, and the total stand at 200,000 million ft. of timber. The variety of forest trees is not great, but some of the California trees are unique, and the forests of the state are, with those of Oregon and Washington, perhaps the most magnificent of the world. At least the coniferous forests which make up nine-tenths of California’s woodland surpass all others known in number of species and in the size and beauty of the trees. ”

“ When revolution broke out in Mexico (1811) , California remained loyal, suffering much by the cessation of supplies from Mexico, the resulting deficits falling as an added burden upon the missions. The occupation of Monterey for a few hours by a Buenos Aires privateer (1818) was the only incident of actual war that California saw in all these years; and it, in truth, was a ridiculous episode, fit introduction to the bloodless play-wars, soon to be inaugurated in Californian politics. In 1820 the Spanish constitution was duly sworn to in California, and in 1822 allegiance was given to Mexico. ”

“ The California vulture, the largest flying bird in North America and fully as large as the Andean condor, is not limited to California but is fairly common there. In the zoology and botany of California as of the rest of the Pacific Coast, the distinctions between the upper austral and humid transition zones are largely obliterated; and as one passes southward into the arid lands, life forms of both these zones intermingle with those of the arid transition. ”

“ As will be inferred from the above account of temperature, summer is longer in the north, and localities in the Valley have more hours of heat than do those of south California. Hence that climatic characteristic of the entire Pacific Coast—already referred to and which is of extreme importance in determining the life-zones of California—the great amount of total annual heat supply at comparatively high latitudes. A low summer temperature enables northern species to push far southward, while the high heat total of the year enables southern species to push far north. ”

“ White-tailed deer and especially black-tails are found on the high Sierra; the mule deer, too, although its habitat is now mainly east of the range, on the plateau, is also met with. Grizzly, black, cinnamon and brown bears are all Californian species once common and to-day rare. When Americans began to rule in California elk and antelope herded in great numbers in the Great Valley; the former may to-day sometimes be seen, possibly, in the northern forests, and the latter occasionally cross into the state from Nevada. The sage-hen is abundant on the eastern flank of the Sierra. ”

“ There is the widest and most startling variety of local climates. At Truckee, for example, lying about 5800 ft. above the sea near Lake Tahoe, the lowest temperature of the year may be -25° F. or colder, when 70 m. westward at Rocklin, which lies in the foothills about 250 ft. above the sea, the mercury does not fall below 28°. Snow never falls at Rocklin, but falls in large quantity at Truckee; ice is the crop of the one, oranges of the other, at the same time. There are points in Southern California where one may actually look from sea to desert and from snow to orange groves. ”

“ The extreme heat of the south-east is tempered by the extremely low humidity characteristic of the Great Basin, which in the interior of the two southernmost counties is very low. The humidity of places such as Fresno, Sacramento and Red Bluff in the valley varies from 48 to 58. Many places in northern, southern, central, mountain and southern coastal California normally have more than 200 perfectly clear days in a year; and many in the mountains and in the south, even on the coast, have more than 250. The extreme variability in the amount of rainfall is remarkable. ”

“ The Nevada slope of the mountains below 7500 ft. is covered with the nut pine down to the sage plains. Its nuts are gathered in enormous amounts by the Indians for food; and it is estimated that the yearly harvest of these nuts exceeds in bulk that of all the cereals of California (John Muir) . On the Sierra the underbrush is characterized by the pungent manzanita, the California buckeye and the chamiso; the last two growing equally abundantly on the Coast Range. ”

“ They grow very abundantly and of the finest quality; for many years poor methods of preparation prejudiced the market against the Californian product, but this has ceased to be the case. The modern orange industry practically began with the introduction into Southern California in 1873 of two seedless orange trees from Brazil; from their stock have been developed by budding millions of trees bearing a seedless fruit known as the “Washington navel,” which now holds first rank in American markets; other varieties, mainly seedlings, are of great but secondary importance. ”

“ In 1893 the United States government created a California Débris Commission, which has acted in unison with the state authorities. Permits for hydraulic mining are granted by the commission only when all gravel is satisfactorily impounded and no harm is done to the streams; and the improvement of these, which was impossible so long as limits were not set to hydraulic mining, can now be effectively advanced. Quartz mining began as early as 1851. In 1908 about five-eighths of the gold output was from such mines. Quartz veins are very often as good at a depth of 3000 ft. ”

“ The Indians were prominent in early Californian history, but their progress toward their present insignificance began far back in the Spanish period. It proceeded much more rapidly after the restraining influence of the missions was removed, leaving them free to revert to savagery; and the downward progress of the race was fearfully accelerated during the mining period, when they were abused, depraved, and in large numbers killed. There have been no Indian wars in California’s annals, but many butcheries. ”

“ In the mountains the precipitation increases with the altitude; above 6000 or 7000 ft. it is almost wholly in the form of snow; and this snow, melting in summer, is of immense importance to the state, supplying water once for placer mining and now for irrigation. The north-west counties are extremely wet; many localities here have normal rainfalls of 60-70 in. and even higher annually, while in extreme seasons as much as 125 in. falls. Along the entire Pacific Coast, but particularly N. of San Francisco, there is a night fog from May to September. ”

“ In thirty years a tree has been known to grow to a height of 80 ft. and a diameter of 16 in. The wood contains no pitch and much water, and in a green condition will not burn. To this fact it owes its immunity from the forest fires which wreak frightful havoc among the surrounding forests. As the redwood is limited to the Coast Range, so the big tree is limited wholly to the Sierra Nevada. Unlike the redwood the big tree occurs in scattered groves (ten in all) among other species. ”

“ The peculiarities of the climate, especially its division into two seasons, make Californian (and Southern Arizona) agriculture very different from that of the rest of the country. During the winter no shelter is necessary for live-stock, nor, during summer, for the grains that are harvested in June and July, and may lie for weeks or months in the field. ”

“ Fish are abundant. The United States fish commission, and an active state commission established in 1869, have done much to preserve and increase this source of food. In 1904 the yield of the fisheries of the three Pacific Coast states was 168,600,000 ℔s, valued at $6,681,000,—nearly half that of the New England states, more than one-third that of the Middle Atlantic states and more than that of the South Atlantic and Gulf states combined. Of the total, California yielded between a quarter and a third. A third of her fish comes from the Sacramento river. ”

“ Nature has been niggard of rain but lavish in soil and sun. Irrigation has shown that with water, arid and barren plains, veritable deserts may be made to bloom with immense wealth of semi-tropical fruits; and irrigation in the tropical area along the Colorado river, which is so arid that it naturally bears only desert vegetation, has made it a true humid-tropical region like Southern Florida, growing true tropical fruits.
In 1900 California ranked eleventh among the states in total value of farm property ($796,527,955) and in 1899 fourteenth in the value of farm products ($131,690,606) . ”

“ Certain it is that though the unprejudiced must admit that exclusion has not been at all an unmixed blessing, yet the consensus of opinion is that a large population, non-citizen and non-assimilable, sending—it is said—most of their earnings to China, living in the main meanly at best, and practically without wives, children or homes, is socially and economically a menace outweighing the undoubted convenience of cheaper (and frequently more trustworthy) menial labour than the other population affords. ”