*** Source: Thompson, Robert A., Historical and descriptive sketch of Sonoma County, California. Philadelphia: L.H. Everts & Co., 1877, 122 pgs. Notice: This data is donated to the Public Domain by TAG, 2004, and may be copied freely by anyone to anywhere. *** ---page 23--- AGRICULTURE. Agriculture cut no figure in the minds of the pioneers, after the discovery of gold in 1848, in their estimates of the probabilities of the future of California. Those who had been longest here did not know the capabilities of the soil they occupied; the general impression prevailed that crops could not be raised without irrigation. The old fathers brought that idea with them from Lower California, and had never gotten rid of it. It remained for the Americans, when the first eager thirst for gold was satisfied, to prove that California was to surpass the world in the field of agriculture, horticulture and floriculture, as she had surpassed it in the yellow harvest of her gold fields. Perchance some minor, when his work was done, Leaned on his pick, just as the setting sun. With ever-changing hue, and ruddy glow, Illumed some peaceful vale that slept below,-- And as he gazed, a vision fair arose Of what the unknown future might disclose; He saw neat homesteads rise upon the plain, Around them waving, yellow fields of grain. He seemed to hear the voice of lowing kine And bleating flocks, borne upward on the wind. He saw beyond the vision still unfold, And California was a land of corn, of wine, and gold. That the priests did not know the soil would produce without irrigation, is proved by an incident in the history of the founding of the mission of Sonoma by Father Altimira, elsewhere measured in this sketch. He camped the second night, after leaving San Rafael, with his party on the arroyo Lema, where the old adobe stands on the Petaluma Plains,--now the valuable farm of W. D. Bliss, Esq., of Petaluma. We quote his journal: ”We started from Lema on the morning of the 27th, about six o’clock, and explored the plain running east, which is extensive enough for a mission, the land being fertile, and covered the grass, but of little use for plants, requiring irrigation in the summer season, for in that season the springs are dried up, as is also the brook running on said plat, or plain, called Chocaiomi.” It would be news to the present owner of the rich and fertile lands around the “old adobe,” to hear there was ever a doubt about its producing anything that grows within the boundaries of California, without irrigation. The first agriculturists in Sonoma county, and north of San Francisco, were the Russians. They planted orchards and vines, and raised the shipped wheat from Bodega bay to Sitka, in the early part of the century. Some of the fruit trees which they planted at Ross, now more than fifty years old, are standing, and bear fruit. They did not cultivate what we regard as our best wheat soil, but, not withstanding, made heavy annual shipments of grain to their fur- hunters in Alaska. The next farmers were priests, and their success proved the wonderful capability of the soil of Sonoma. They founded the mission of San Francisco Solano, at Sonoma, in 1823; and in 1834, eleven years after, an official report credits the mission with three thousand horned cattle, seven hundred horses, four thousand sheep, and the harvest that year as three thousand bushels of *** end ***