The cows are not driven more than a mile to be milked; the fields being so arranged that the corral is near the centre.  When they are milked, they stray back of themselves to their grazing places.

[Illustration:  COLUMBIA RIVER SCENE.]

CHAPTER X.

TEHAMA AND BUTTE, AND THE UPPER COUNTRY.

General Bidwell, of Butte County, raised last year on his own estate, besides a large quantity of fruit, seventy-five thousand bushels of wheat.  Dr. Glenn, of Colusa County, raised and sent to market from his own estate, two hundred thousand bushels.  Mr. Warner, of Solano County, produced nine thousand gallons of cider from his own orchards.  A sheep-grazer in Placer County loaded ten railroad cars with wool, the clip of his own sheep.  For many weeks after harvest you may see sacks of wheat stacked along the railroad and the river for miles, awaiting shipment; for the farmers have no rain to fear, and the grain crop is thrashed in the field, bagged, and stacked along the road, without even a tarpaulin to cover it.

In 1855, California exported about four hundred and twenty tons of wheat; in 1873, the export was but little less than six hundred thousand tons.  In 1857, six casks and six hundred cases of California wine were sent out of the State; in 1872, about six hundred thousand gallons were exported.  In 1850, California produced five thousand five hundred and thirty pounds of wool; in 1872, this product amounted to twenty-four million pounds.  Thirty million pounds of apples, ten million pounds of peaches, four and a half million pounds of apricots, nearly two million pounds of cherries, are part of the product of the State, in which the man is still living who brought across the Plains the first fruit-trees to set out a nursery; while four and a half million of oranges, and a million and a half of lemons, shipped from the southern part of the State, show the rapid growth of that culture.

In the northern counties, of which Tehama and Butte are a sample, they are usually fortunate in the matter of late as well as early rains; but close under the coast range the country is dryer, as is natural, the high mountain range absorbing the moisture from the north-westerly winds.  They begin to plow as soon as it rains, usually in November, and sow the grain at once.  Formerly the higher plains were thought to be fit only for grazing; but even the red lands, which are somewhat harder to break up, and were thought to be infertile, are found to bear good crops of grain; and this year these lands bear the drought better than some that were and are preferred.  Lambing takes place here in February, and they shear in April.  The grazing lands abound in wild oats, very nutritious, but apt to run out where the pastures are overstocked.  Alfilleria is not found so far north as this; alfalfa has been sown all over the valley in proper places, and does well.  They cut it three times in the year, and turn stock in on it after the last cutting; and all who grow it speak well of it.