A Gold and land speculation rush brought huge amounts of unattached men into California (potential 'disadvantaged' labor, since most wouldn't find riches in gold). A short-lived boom in beef cattle kept a lot of them around. A lot of these laborers probably ended up shifted into wheat production because of a revolution in farming techniques, better milling and TRANSPORT. And with the beef bubble done, the ranchers often had to divide and sell their lands. So then next we see what creates conditions for California to have a major bread basket in the Central Valley. California was the country's no. 7 wheat producing state by 1880 (perhaps that was the peak actually?), and the US was a major exporter of the grain. One reason why it had its wheat boom was it was also a good place to grow feed barley (not the same stuff used to brew beer), to feed the mules and horses that were used to power grain production. The reason you had to feed mules and horses on high-energy grain like barley or corn and not just let them eat grass and hay was because you were asking them to do so much work and they needed the extra energy to pull all that machinery.
Norris wrote about it before it was irrigated enough to be a different sort of agricultural production center (so half a century later you can read Steinbeck). Here is some history on the raw material of what Norris was trying to capture in the Octopus (cattle ranchers who were trying to make a living on both beef and wheat farming): http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a790270447&db=all Abstract In the period 1870-1910 world agriculture underwent a global reorganisation, and California's Central Valley was drawn into expanding world commodities and labour markets. Unlike the rest of North America, California's response to world demand for food drew heavily on wage labour. The availability of disadvantaged labour in California allowed the early divergence from national patterns of agricultural development. This article employs a twofold comparative strategy to examine the dynamic character of California's agricultural sector in this period. First, encompassing comparison contrasts California's agriculture to the North American plains and identifies the divergent impact of very similar world-market forces. Second, panel modeling of aggregate county-level data reveals patterns of change within California's agricultural economy over four decades. Simultaneously modelling changes in the odds of three classes of farms over four decades reveals two dynamic farming sectors with distinct developmental trajectories. The first is based on intensive farming and family labour. The second is based on extensive cropping and wage labour. Both respond differently to the presence of disadvantaged labour. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldrush/peopleevents/e_landscape.html The New Gold The miners didn't seem to understand that wheat was becoming the new gold. In 1880 a single farmer made $800,000 on his wheat crop. That decade, the value of the state's agricultural production exceeded the value of its mines. On January 7, 1884 state court judge Lorenzo Sawyer finally ruled in favor of the farmers, bringing an official end to hydraulic mining. But for the next ten years, clandestine mining operations persisted in washing debris into California's rivers, leaving a landscape that looked as if it had been ravaged by giant moles. http://www.mchsmuseum.com/agoverview.html The discovery of gold in 1848 acted upon this relatively stable situation with the force of an electric shock. In less than two years the population of the state changed from a few scattered self-contained units to a predominance of males composed almost exclusively of miners. Not only were the tens of thousands of newcomers intent upon reaching the gold fields, but the vast majority of men engaged in other pursuits in the towns and settlements of the new country left jobs and crops unattended. Food and other supplies had to be imported from distant places, and there was a severe shortage of labor in every locality. The high prices prevailing at San Francisco attracted large shipments of commodities, and soon glutted the market with flour, beans, tobacco, and lumber. Goods were left to rot on deserted vessels, and perishables were thrown from warehouses into the streets. The market fluctuated dramatically from year to year until additional warehouses could be built and Atlantic shippers learned to be more cautious with consignments to the west coast. The period from 1849 to 1858 was a prosperous one for the rancheros. With practically no change in their methods of stockraising, their incomes were multiplied by several times. Cattle raising became an industry--they were no longer slaughtered for their hides, but were driven on the hoof to market by drovers employed by San Francisco firms. These prosperous days for the rancheros were relatively shortlived, though, as the market soon became overstocked with beef, and the quality of cattle imported from Missouri was more attractive to buyers than the rangy Spanish black cattle. This condition was followed by a severe drought in 1862-1864 that effectively destroyed all stock that had not been driven to the interior valley lakes or the high Sierra. The rancheros, with their lands heavily mortgaged to compensate the losses, began to subdivide lands that were held in clear title, while the Homestead Act made adjacent lands available to incoming settlers. Many of the incoming settlers had been involved in grain farming near San Francisco and the Sacramento Valley. In addition to this pool of experienced farmers, the disruption of markets and transportation lines by the Civil War provided a second encouragement to grain farming on the old rancho lands. Grain was grown commercially in Monterey County as early as 1852 on the Salinas plains, but in fact most lands in the overview area that would have been suitable for grains were still under the undisputed ownership of the older Hispanic families. The necessity for fencing land against free ranging cattle was a retarding influence on the spread of grain farming. Fencing was prohibitively expensive in the early settlement period, as barbed wire had not yet been invented and labor was scarce. As settlement and neighbors increased both the capital burden and the labor could be shared. The Monterey County assessor reported in 1867 that 7,000 acres of land had been enclosed in two years, and that 11,000 acres had been put into production. He noted that the improvements had taken place on former ranchos that had been subdivided and rented out in lots of 100 acres, and that the lower Salinas Valley was the location of most of the new farming activity. A second obstacle to the prospective grain farmer in the Salinas Valley was the lack of rail transportation for market access. The need for local consumption was very small, and after 1866 most products were shipped out of the area from Moss Landing at the mouth of the Salinas Valley via the Pacific Coast Steamship Company. An attempt was made to barge grain down the Salinas River during the same period of time, but this did not prove feasible. The extension of the Southern Pacific Railroad southward from San Francisco was an important factor in the development of the upper and middle Salinas Valley. The line reached San Jose in 1864, Gilroy in 1869, Pajaro in 1871, Salinas in 1872, and Soledad in 1873. It went no further until 1886, and farmers in the San Antonio and Jolon Valleys in southern Monterey County hauled grain by wagon to Soledad or San Miguel to reach a market. The short narrow gauge line between Monterey and Salinas (the Monterey & Salinas Valley Railroad) provided access to shipping during 1874. As it had done elsewhere when competition appeared, Southern Pacific lowered its rates and bought out the foundering short line. Moss Landing continued to hold its importance as a grain shipping center even after Southern Pacific had penetrated the heart of the wheat growing country, mostly because of an independent farmer reaction to the monopolistic policies of the railroad company. An important feature in the expansion of grain acreage was the development of machinery that made possible the cultivation of large acreages with a minimum of labor. California offered physical conditions particularly suited to the use of such machinery, and labor for traditional methods was scarce. Hand reaping was replaced by horse-drawn harvesters built by McCormick, Manny, and others by 1859. Advertisers bragged that the new harvester could enter a field of grain in the morning and by nightfall 25 acres would have been mowed, thrashed, cleaned, and sacked. The header that came into use about 1860 was especially useful in the dry California climate. While first the wire binder and later the twine binder were being perfected for use in humid regions, the header became the usual harvesting machine here. In 1880 the wheat harvest in California was accomplished chiefly with twelve-foot headers, with six horses or mules to each header, and one such header could cut 15 to 25 acres per day. Several improvements were made in threshing machines during the 1850s and 1860s, and steam power gradually replaced horse power in their operations during the following two decades. In 1880 steam threshers that burned wheat straw for fuel were in general use throughout California. Barley had always been an important feed grain in California, to some extent taking the place filled by corn in certain other regions. It was important first for draft animals and later in meat production. Since oxen, horses, and mules furnished most of the tractive power and even much of the stationary power during the period under consideration, the demand for feed for draft animals was considerable. Since the markets for feed barley were near at hand and those for wheat at a greater distance, transportation developments increased the relative advantage of wheat production and allowed it to surpass barley in volume. The exports of barley during this period were relatively insignificant. Some barley was used within the county for brewing, but little was shipped to other potential markets, as the climate was not considered suitable for the production of brewing barley. During the 1880s, two flouring mills were in operation in the county. One was constructed at Salinas in 1883, with a capacity of 35 barrels, later remodeled to a capacity of 500 barrels a day. The second was located at King City, and had a daily capacity of 150 barrels. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
