San Diego County CA Archives History - Books .....Progress Of Farming, Etc. 1888 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/copyright.htm http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com February 20, 2006, 6:07 pm Book Title: The City And County Of San Diego CHAPTER II. PROGRESS OF FARMING, ETC. IF ever a country needed good plowing it was San Diego County. If ever a country failed to get it, it was this same San Diego. The long tramp, tramp, tramp, of immense bands of sheep over the ground while it was wet had packed it to the hardness of an adobe brick. Even the alfileria and burr-clover, which endure more ill treatment than almost any other vegetation, failed to reach half their natural size. In many places they were nearly destroyed by being eaten off while growing, and foxtail and other kinds of poverty grass and rank weeds were in their places. The desolate appearance given the land by the bands of sheep, can scarcely be imagined to-day by those who look only upon the cultivated vineyards of El Cajon, or the alfalfa fields of San Jacinto. "Tickle the earth with a plow and it will laugh with a harvest," some well-meaning goose had written of California, in the days gone by. Unfortunately for the land this was true in many seasons. In fact, in three seasons out of ten, grain sown upon an old road or abandoned brick-yard will do about as well as anywhere. In two years more out of ten, the mildest scratching will suffice. As the great California weather prophet remembers only his predictions that turn out correct, so the new farmer remembered only his successes, and scratching in grain with a cultivator, harrow, or even a brush-drag, became the rule. Even where a gang plow was used, there was no plowing, the plows being so numerous that no team could draw them if deeply set. For years the single plow was never seen in use, except to make a road or break brushy ground. Many defended this style of farming on reasoning that appeared sound. "If it is a good year I will get a good crop anyhow, no matter how carelessly put in. If it's a bad year, I won't get a crop no matter how well it is put in. By scratching I can get in four or five times as much ground as I can with good plowing, and the chances of a good season are always six out of ten." The crops raised under this system were sometimes enormous, exceeding the heaviest yields ever known east of the Rocky Mountains, and when combined with a good price, often yielded a heavy return over expenses. But in the long run this style has been a failure. It soon made the soil foul with weeds, cheat, etc., reducing the quality and quantity of the grain, so that it became necessary to lose an occasional year by summer fallow. And in the years of light or average rainfall, the want of good plowing told too heavily. In the mountain belts, where there was always rain enough in dry years, there was too much in years when there was enough along the coast. Fine crops were raised there in such severely dry years as 1877 and 1883, but the cost of hauling to market was too great. The smaller farmers, who sowed small areas with grain, did better work and had better crops. But their work was generally a failure in the long run for another reason: The big farmers did everything by machinery and hired labor, and it was beneath the dignity of the small farmer to do otherwise. There was not a cradle, flail, or threshing floor among the Americans in the whole county; and if a man had only twenty acres of grain, he must have it cut with a header and threshed with a threshing machine, no matter how much spare time he or his boys might have. When harvest came a small army of ravenous hands and horses would descend upon him, generally on Saturday night, so as to insure rations for Sunday. Instead of cutting around the field with a cradle to make a way for the header, the ponderous machine smashed its own way around the first swath or up the center of the field. The knives, sharpened apparently but once a year, tore and stripped many a stalk instead of cutting it, and many a head of grain was so badly cut that it fell under the machine instead of in the receiver. From fifteen to twenty per cent of the crop was thus wasted, and there was no gleaning of the stubbles except with the live stock. When threshing-time came around, the same wasteful extravagance was repeated on a still greater scale. By the time the farmer had his grain sacked and hauled to market, he was often in debt and seldom much ahead. In many other respects, San Diego County farming was about the worst in the world. Make no machinery that you can buy, and do nothing yourself that you can hire anyone else to do, seemed to be the cardinal principle. Nearly all were farming, not for something to eat or use on the farm, but for something to haul many miles to market to sell at a low price, to buy provisions at a high price, to haul all the way home again to eat. Never did it take men so long to learn anything. One man would lose a hundred chickens by wild cats and cayotes before he would learn to shut the coop at night. Another would lose his garden or young vines two or three years in succession before discovering that a rabbit-proof fence was the first and not the last requisite. Other farmers seemed to forget everything they ever knew before. Men who, in Illinois, planted corn forty inches apart in rows straight both ways and cultivated it constantly until it was too high to drive through, planted it here in rows but twenty inches apart, crooked both ways, and never afterward touched it. The same was done with potatoes and all kinds of produce planted in Hills or rows. And though Heaven rewarded their folly as it deserved, yet year after year, as the spring came around, they went through the same old ceremony, as if trying a new experiment in a new country. The same thing may be seen to-day in too many places. Vet, in spite of all this carelessness, coupled with high rates of interest and high prices for all manner of goods and machinery, the farmers of this county generally lived better, had more spare time, more spare change, and fewer mortgage foreclosures than the farmers of any other State. The absence of rain, hail, etc., in summer and the difference in the cost of getting through the winter, more than overbalanced all else. For several years, beginning about 1869, bee-keeping was immensely profitable, and in the warm days of winter and spring, the air above the spangled earth was a steady hum. About 1S78 the price of honey began to decline, with a decided falling off in the certainty of production. The use of glucose for adulteration, in the East, has probably broken the price. The decline in production has been explained in various ways, all of which are unsatisfactory. These styles of farming continued up to about 1880, when slight changes for the better were noticed, and from that time to the present, the inflow of new-comers, with the advance of new ideas and principles worked out in the counties north of us, has brought about a decided revolution, which is fast spreading. Additional Comments: From: THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO. ILLUSTRATED, AND CONTAINING BI0GRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN AND PIONEERS. SAN DIEGO, CAL. LEBERTHON & TAYLOR 1888 File at: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/ca/sandiego/history/1888/cityandc/progress291nms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/cafiles/ File size: 7.6 Kb