We would, in all the valleys, advise a fall irrigation (if the rains are late) and the sowing of burr clover, which when started in September will have the ground well covered by December, if you keep the moisture right to push it. Disking or plowing this under in March (or April, according to locality) will hold the sand and afterward enrich it. You can do this every year, but probably you will not need to seed it more than once.
Bananas in California.
Is there any reason why bananas would not grow and bear in the vicinity of Merced if they had plenty of water? Or would the cool nights at certain seasons keep them from bearing? Would they do better in the Imperial valley?
Bananas would suffer too severely from frost to be profitable at any point in the interior valleys of California. A plant would be killed to the ground at least every year unless under glass or other protection. There are a few places practically frostless where bananas can be grown in this State, but there is no promise in commercial production because they can be so cheaply imported from the tropics.
Carobs in California.
Will the carob tree (St. John's Bread) do well in the Sacramento valley, and is it a desirable tree for lining a driveway?
Carobs have been grown in California for thirty years or more and they will make a handsome driveway and give a lot of pods for the kids and the pigs - for they are "the husks which the swine did eat," and both like them. They ought to be much more widely planted in California because they grow well and are good to look upon.
Spineless Cactus Fruit.
I have about two acres of high land in Fresno county that can't be irrigated. It is red adobe soil and there is hardpan in it. Which kind of fruit trees will grow and pay best? How near may the hardpan be to the surface before I have to blast it?
It is a hard fruit proposition. Try spineless cactus, the fruits of which are delicious. Blasting would help if there is a moist substratum below the hardpan and might enable you to grow many fruits. If your land is hard and dry all the way down, blasting would not help you unless you can get irrigation. Presumably your rainfall is too small for fruit unless you strike underflow below the hardpan.