threshed out from the straw. Then Indian women
winnowed out the chaff and dirt by tossing the grain up in the wind,
or from basket to basket, till in this slow way the yellow kernels
were made clean and ready to grind.

A curious mill, called an arrastra, ground the grain between two heavy
stones. A wooden beam was fastened to the upper stone, and oxen or a
mule hitched to this beam turned the stone as they walked round. The
first flour-mill worked by water was put up at San Gabriel Mission,
and it was thought a wonderful thing indeed.

Even in those early days California wheat was known to be excellent,
and many ships came on the South Sea, as they then called the Pacific
Ocean, to load with grain for Mexico or Boston or England. Since that
time our state has fed countless people, and over a million acres of
valley and hill lands are green and golden every year with food for
the world. To Europe, to the swarming people of China, Japan, and
India, to South Africa and Australia, our grain is carried in great
ships and steamers, and hungry nations in many lands look to us for
bread.

For a long time after the Mission days, all the grain had to be hauled
to the rivers or sea-coast for shipping. Then the overland railroad
was finished, and within the next fifteen years an additional two
thousand miles of railways were built in California, and nearly every
mile opened up rich wheat land that had never been cultivated. Soon
great wheat ranches stretched far over the dry, hot valley plains.

The ground is ploughed and seeded after November rains, and all winter
the tender blades of grain grow greener and stronger day by day March
and April rains strengthen the crop wonderfully, and June and July
bring the harvest-time. As no rain falls then, the ripe wheat stands
in the field till cut, and afterward in sacks without harm. All the
work except ploughing is done by machinery, and this makes the wheat
cost less to raise, since a machine does the work of many men and the
expense of running it is small.

Some of the ranches have three or four thousand acres in wheat, and
it may interest you to know how such large farms are managed. The
ploughing is done by a gang-plough, as it is called, which has four
steel ploughshares that turn up the ground ten inches deep. Eight
horses draw this, and as a seeder is fastened to the plough, and back
of the plough a harrow, the horses plough, seed, harrow, and cover up
the grain at one time