A Critical Situation in Two One-Crop Wheat Farming Districts in California

Abstract

PtflnWO small districts in the Santa Lucia Mountains in _. _California (Fig. 1) are devoted primarily to growing wheat by dryfarming methods. One of these, the Lockwood district, near the middle of the San Antonio Valley, comprises about twenty square miles; the other in Hames Valley is about half this size. The population of the two districts, amounting to about 500, is dense compared with that of the thinly settled grazing lands and unoccupied waste lands which surround them. In the Lockwood district, the houses are fairly evenly distributed; in Hames Valley, the grouping of houses assumes a linear arrangement. This contrast in distribution is related to the dissimilar road patterns which, in turn, represent adjustments to markedly different topographic conditions. The broad lowland which constitutes the Lockwood district was surveyed in sections; roads, as well as fences, in nearly all cases are on, or parallel to, section lines. Along each of the roads making up this rectangular network, the houses are fairly evenly spaced. Extending through the relatively narrow Hames Valley, on the other hand, there is but one main road; from it a few laterals run back to terminate in the neighboring foothills. Practically all the houses of Hames Valley are placed near the main road. The square mile mapped in Figure 2 represents in a general way the layout of farm land in the wheat farming districts. The surface is level except for the two small hills, the slopes of which are so steep that they cannot be cultivated. Barbed wire fences, about four feet high, bound rectangular fields of various sizes. The area mapped, however, contains more than the usual proportion of fallow, waste, and grazing land; there are also more oak trees than are found in a square mile typical of these districts. The farmstead has been abandoned, but the farm has been divided and the parts added to neighboring holdings. The wheat raised in the Lockwood and Hames Valley districts is of good quality and in high demand. Its high grade is due to favorable environmental conditions. There is a cool period of growth in the early spring, and a hot, dry summer. In contrast to the Salinas Valley, there are no fogs in these districts. It is chiefly on account of its fogs that barley, rather than wheat, is the staple grain of the Salinas Valley. During some seasons an insufficient rainfall in the Lockwood and Hames Valley districts results in small yields of wheat. The methods of farming in these two districts are alike, and so are the difficulties which confront their farmers; it is, accordingly, convenient to discuss them together. Under the influence of the recently ended rains, the wheat districts present in early spring a panorama of green fields, broken here and there