Immense quantities of wheat were raised, especially in Humboldt County on the northern coast of the State, where we hear of crops averaging sixty bushels to the acre. In 1860 the surplus of wheat, the quantity, that is, available for exportation, exceeded three million bushels; and the barley crop was still larger. The Stanislaus and Santa Clara Valleys, not far from San Francisco, and southeast of the city, were also grain-growing districts, as is recorded in Bret Harte’s story Through the Santa Clara Wheat.
He describes his heroine as following her guide between endless rows of stalks, rising ten and even twelve feet high, like “a long, pillared conservatory of greenish glass.” “She also discovered that the close air above her head was continually freshened by the interchange of lower temperature from below,—as if the whole vast field had a circulation of its own,—and that the adobe beneath her feet was gratefully cool to her tread. There was no dust; what had at first half suffocated her seemed to be some stimulating aroma of creation that filled the narrow green aisles, and now imparted a strange vigor and excitement to her as she walked along.”
So early as 1851 the newspapers began to publish articles about the opportunities for farming, and soon afterward the “California Farmer,” an excellent weekly, was started at Sacramento, and supplied the community with news in general as well as with agricultural information. One can imagine the relief with which in those strenuous days the reader of the “Farmer” turned from accounts of robbery, murder, suicide and lynching to gentle disquisitions upon the rearing of calves, the merits of Durham steers, and the most approved method of fattening sheep in winter. The Hubbard squash, then a novelty, was treated by the “Farmer” as seriously as the Constitutional Convention, or the expulsion of foreigners from the mines. Practical subjects, as for instance, subsoil ploughs, remedies for smut, and recipes for rhubarb wine, were carefully discussed by this Pioneer agriculturist; and not infrequently he rose to higher themes, such as “The Age of the Earth,” and “The Influence of Females on Society.”
CHAPTER XII
LITERATURE, JOURNALISM AND RELIGION
Most of the newspaper men in the early days of California were Southerners or under Southern influence, as is plain from many indications. For example, duelling and shooting at sight were common editorial functions.[77]
Bret Harte, in An Episode of Fiddletown, gives an instance: “An unfortunate rencontre took place on Monday last between the Honorable Jackson Flash, of the ‘Dutch Flat Intelligencer,’ and the well-known Colonel Starbottle of this place, in front of the Eureka Saloon. Two shots were fired by the parties without injury to either, although it is said that a passing Chinaman received fifteen buckshot in the calves of his legs from the Colonel’s double-barrelled shotgun which were not intended for him. John will learn to keep out of the way of Melican man’s firearms hereafter.”
This fictitious incident can be paralleled almost exactly from the California papers of the day. In July, 1851, a certain Colonel Johnston pulled the nose of the Editor of the “Marysville Times,” whereupon the Editor drew a pistol, and the Colonel ran away. In September of the same year the “Alta California” announced that a duel between one of the proprietors of that paper and a brother to the Governor of the State had been prevented by the police. In March, 1851, two Sacramento Editors had a dispute in the course of which one endeavored to shoot the other. In May of the same year, the Editor of the “Calaveras Chronicle” fought a duel with another citizen of that town, and was dangerously wounded. In November, 1860, the Editor of the “Visalia Delta” was killed in a street affray. In San Francisco a duel took place between ex-Governor McDougall and the Editor of “The Picayune,” “A. C. Russell, Esq.”