The Spanish Crown held three principles in regard to the Indian: quot;to con-
vert him, to civilize him, to exploit himquot; i). The third of these was originally
left to the encomienda system. This provided,that a Spanish colonist act as trustee
or encomendero, controlling the Indian and his land, and sharing profits with the
king. For the conversion and spiritual training of the natives, he was obliged
to offer residence to one or more friars. Though the encomienda system flourished
among the semi-civilized, agricultural Indians of Mexico, it could only break
down in failure when imposed upon wandering, barbarous tribes. It was evident
therefore, that if the task of controlling, converting, and civilizing these latter-
peoples were to be accomplished, another agency than the encomendero would
have to be placed in charge. So it came about that the missions were grad-
ually given additional responsibilities. In the Mexican borderlands they became
the centers from which Spanish civilization radiated, changing the mere military
conquest into a cultural one

Considering that the mission had to be a cultural lighthouse for a wide area,
it was of highest importance that it be advantageously located. The missionaries
who accompanied the expeditions sent north from San Diego were thus on the
constant lookout for suitable places. In fact, several of the expeditions which
explored the Santa Clara Valley were sent out for the express purpose of deter-
mining mission sites. An ideal mission location had to possess primarily the
following qualifications: a numerous Indian population; abundant good land
and water; a sufficient supply of available timber 3). The padres, writing in their
diaries, clearly reflect the search for these necessities. Father Crespi, in 1772
commented on the San Benito Valley as being very favorable because of thé
water and soil, quot;though wood might be scarce.quot; He also noted that the region
just south of the present Gilroy, which he baptized the San Bernardino de Sena,
might be a good mission site. The plain had good pasturage, and an adequate
timber supply along the numerous arroyos quot;with good running waterquot; ¹). Palou
two years later accompanied a party visiting the San Francisco Bay region.
He agreed with Crespi on the advantages of the Hollister Valley but gave his
attention principally to a site in the bay plain, namely that of Palo Alto on the
San Francisquito Creek. Natives, water, wood, and pasture were all there«).

It was not until some years later that a settlement was made in the Santa
Clara Valley. Of more pressing concern was the establishment of a presidio at
the Golden Gate, and near it the Mission San Francisco de Asis. When this
strategical point had been strengthened, attention was turned to the building
of a mission south of the Bay. Subsequent to Palou\'s choice of the Palo Alto site,
it was found that the place lacked water in summerMoreover, the lower

TER VERKRIJGING VAN DEN GRAAD VAN
DOCTOR IN DE LETTEREN EN WIJSBEGEERTE
AAN DE RIJKS-UNIVERSITEIT TE UTRECHT,
OP GEZAG VAN DEN RECTOR-MAGNIFICUS
Dr. C. G. N. DE VOOYS, HOOGLEERAAR IN
DE FACULTEIT DER LETTEREN EN WIJS-
BEGEERTE, VOLGENS BESLUIT VAN DEN
SENAAT DER UNIVERSITEIT TEGEN DE BE-
DENKINGEN VAN DE FACULTEIT DER LETTE-
REN EN WIJSBEGEERTE EN VAN DE FACUL-
TEIT DER WIS- EN NATUURKUNDE TE
VERDEDIGEN OP VRIJDAG 9 DECEMBER 1932,
DES NAMIDDAGS TE 4 UUR

	• ■ vi;
i \'•quot; ».	\' \'ft
Ur

	.. • ■ :
quot; r* .


■s- -. ,
■ ■ : ^ ■ ■

Met groote erkentelijkheid gedenk ik hen, die tot mijn academische vorming
en haar afsluiting hebben bijgedragen.

In de eerste plaats dank ik U, Hooggeleerde Van Vuuren, Hooggeschatte
Promotor, voor Uwe diepgaande belangstelling voor dit onderzoek. Uwe op-
bouwende critiek heeft ten zeerste bijgedragen tot een verheldering van mijn
inzichten en een scherper formuleer ing der problemen. Zonder Uwe krachtige
hulp zou het mij niet mogelijk geweest zijn dit proefschrift in zijn huldigen vorm
te publiceeren.

Hooggeleerde Kohlbrugge, U ben ik in het bijzonder erkentelijk voor de
gelegenheid, die Gij mij gaaft onder Uwe persoonlijke leiding wij verder in de
volkenkunde te bekwamen en voor Uw daadwerkelijken bijstand in de verwezen-
lijking van mijn studiereisplannen.

Hooggeleerde Oestreich, Hooggeleerde Van Everdingen, Hooggeleerde
Kutten, ik betreur het, dat mijn belangstelling voor de sociale wetenschappen
slechts weinig tijd gelaten heeft tot een verdieping van inzichten in de physische
zijde van de aardrijkskunde. Niettemin zijt Gij het geweest, Hooggeleerde
Oestreich, die op Uwe doorwrochte colleges en zeer gewaardeerde excursies,
den jongen student het landschap leerdet zien. Uwe welwillende hulp. Hoogge-
leerde van Everdingen, zooals ik die thans weer bij de voorbereiding van mijn
proefschrift mocht ondervinden, stel ik ten zeerste op prijs.

Hooggeleerde Kernkamp, moge dit geschriit U toonen, dat ik getracht heb
de door U gewekte belangstelling voor geschiedenis mij in de geographic ten nutte
te maken.

Hooggeleerde Verrijn Stuart, ik acht het een voorrecht Uwe lessen te hebben
mogen volgen. Uw onderricht is mij van groot nut geweest bij mijn voortgezette
studies.

Hooggeleerde Huizinga, voor Uwe bemiddeling bij het verwerven van het
Fellowship of the Rockefeller Foundation gevoel ik mij ten zeerste aan U verplicht.

Gedurende de onvergetelijke jaren, dat het Geographisch Instituut het
centrum van mijn arbeidsveld was, hebt Gij, Zeergeleerde Hol, mij altijd met
de grootste welwillendheid voorgelicht en hulp verleend. Daarvoor mijn harte-
lijken dank.

Wanneer het juist is, dat het doel van stedebouw is de planmatige ordening
van het landschap, dan ligt hier een taak voor den geograaf om bij te dragen
tot de grondslagen, waarop elk stedebouwknndig plan moet rusten. Dat Gij,
Hooggeachte Hudig, mij de gelegenheid hebt gegeven aan het Instituut voor
Volkshuisvesting en Stedebouw onder Uwe leiding te werken, heb ik daarom
ten zeerste op prijs gesteld.

Zeergeleerde Van Lummel, U dank ik voor Uwe waardevolle adviezen inzake
het inrichten van de bibliographie.

Het voor publicatie geschikt maken van het kaartmateriaal heeft veel van
Uwe medewerking geeischt, Hooggeachte Van der Zweep. Ik wensch U hier
dank te zeggen voor de aangename wijze waarop Gij Uwe hulp verleend hebt.

I wish to express my profound gratitude to the Rockefeller Foundation which
granted me a fellowship for two years and liberally made possible the special
investigations necessary to this study. This period of research and travel has
greatly broadened my general and scientific outlook, and thus has been an in valu-
able experience.

It is impossible to mention here all those in England and in the United
States who have most kindly given their interest and assistance, but I feel that
I should name Dr. I. Bowman, Director of the American Cxeographical Society
at New York, Dr. D. S. Whittlesey of Harvard University, and Dr. 0. E. Baker
of the Federal Department of Agriculture at Washington; their advice and
suggestions were of particular helj) in directing the foreign student in his plans.

The first year of the fellowship was used for visiting a number of institutions
to investigate objectives and methods in the field of human geography and
affiliated sciences; the second year was devoted to special research. I wish to
acknowledge the hospitality and the appointment to Research Fellow extended
to me by the University of California. To the many who generously gave of their
time to instruct and inform me concerning the Santa Clara Valley investigation
I give my sincere thanks. I wish especially to express my deep gratitude to
Dr. C. 0 Sauer who so generously allowed me to make his department at
Berkeley my headquarters and who contributed to this study by his valuable
suggestions and constructive criticisms.

Chapter II. Introductory Sketch of the Santa Clara Valley. . 11—19
§ 1. Defining the Region, 11—12. § 2. Facts for Orientation,
12—14. § 3. The Physiognomy of the Valley: The Northern
Section, 14—16; The Central Section, 16—17; The Southern
Section, 17—19.

§ 1. Structure and Morphology, 20—21. § 2. Climate, 21—25.
§ 3. Hydrography and Soils, 25—27.

§ 1. Choosing Sites for Settlement, 34—36. § 2. The Mission
System, 36—37. § 3. The Secular Settlement, 38—40. § 4.
The Land System, 40—46.

Chapter Vl. The Landscape in Spanish-Mexican Times . . . 47—53
§ 1. The Mission, 47—49. § 2. The Pueblo, 49—50. § 3. The
Rancho, 50. § 4. Pastoral Activities, 51. § 5. The Embarca-
deros, 51. § 6. Agricultural Methods, 51—52. § 7. Vegeta-
tional Changes, 52—53. § 8. Summary, 53.

§ 1. Cieneral Considerations, 54—55. § 2. The American
Occui)ation, 55—56. § 3. The Land Problem, 57—60. § 4.
Development of Agriculture: The Cattle Industry, 60—61;
The Fence Question, 61—62; Sheep Raising, 62—63; The
Dairy Industry, 63; Grain Farming, 63--65; Farm Machinery,
65—66; Horticulture, 66--68; Viticulture, 68—69; Truck
Farming, 69; Other Ventures, 69—70. § 5. The Growth of
Settlements: Population, 70—72; The Towns, 72—75.

Chapter VIII. The Landscape in the Early American Period . 76—1(X)
§1. The Agricultural Pattern: The Wheat Belt, 76—79; The
Cattle Range, 79—80; The Dairy Districts, 80—81; The
Orchard Regions, 81—83; The Vineyard Belt, 83—84. § 2.
The Farms: Arrangement, 84—88; Fences, 88; Trees, 88—89;
The Farmstead, 89—92. §3. Town and Road Pattern: i^mc-
timial Structure of the Towns, 92—94; The Road System,
94—96; Lay-out of the Towns, 97—100.

§ 1. Some General Observations, 101—103. § 2. Agricultural
Transmutations: Grain and Hay Crops, 104—105; The
Dairy Industry, 105—106; Viticulture, 106—109; The Orchard
Industry, 109—112; Preservation of Fruits, 112—113; Vege-
tables and Seeds, 113—114. § 3. Irrigation: Development
115—118; Threatening Water Shortage, 118—120; Steps To-
wards Water Conservation, 120—122. § 4. The Rural Settle-
ments: The Farm Population: 123—126; Racial and Natimial
Shifts in the Farm Population, 126—128; The Rural Non-
Farm Population, 128—129. § 5. Service Settlements: The
Neighborhood Centers, 130; Towns and Cities, 131—135.

§ 1. Landscape Types, 136. § 2. The Orchard Landscape:
location of Orchard Units, 137—139; Appearance of Orchard
Landscape, 139—142. § 3. The Dairy and Truck Farm
Landscape, 142—144. § 4. The Pasture Landscape, 144—
146. § 5. The Landscape of Diversified Land Use, 147—149.
§ 6. Cities and Towns: Location, 149—150; Morphology of
Settlements, 151--153. § 7. Rural Service Clusters, 153—154.
§ 8. Roadside Settlements, 154—155. § 9. The Houses,
155_158. § 10. The Mountains: A Neglected Function of
the Mountains, 158—159; The Eastern Mountain Border,

Santa Cruz Range as a Recreation-Landscape, 162. § 11. The
Bay Marshes, 163—165.

While physiography has been estabhshed as the science of natural forms
of the earth s surface, human geography is still in confusion as to its objectives
Ihis study does not purpose to review all attempts which have been made to
confirm human geography as an autonomous science. Perhaps their greatest
common divisor is the search for causal relationships between man and tL land

appear to be most wide spread. One of these considers geography as a demon-
ration of man\'s adpisteiii to his environment; the other delineate geograX
egions by invest,pting the correlations between man and his enfiron^
In later years both of these viewpoints have met with severe criticismT

As many writers have pointed out, the examination of environmentalinfluences
IS not peculiar to geography alone. Moreover, a science that is based on one
particular category of causal connections is in danger of overestimating Z
importance of this group of factors. The quot;cyclopic ou\'tlookquot;, a aM^Iate
a limited conception of this kind, gives particular difficulties in descriWnTgeo
Sr örre?„fquot;nbsp;Either the study becomes narrowed do™ to

picture of the country, or the presentation transgresses the close confines of
environmentalism and gives much that by reason of the definiüon r^^uTt be

graphy IS a duahstic sciencequot;. Moreover, in many cases, so-called regional
geography becomes a mass of encyclopaedic data tied together only by the fL
that they happen to occur in a certain area.

From the above mentioned conceptions it is evident that human geography
lacks a definite character in subject as well as approach. This, and otL Sp-
ions have led to a point of view - long since represented by 0 Schlüter i -
which proves in many respects to be far more satisfactory. Instead of approLh
mg an unrestricted field with a narrow explanation, we need an quot;jectt

attitude toward a well defined subject. While physiography deals with the
natural physiognomy of the earth, human geography should consider those
areal features which are associated with the earth as man\'s habitat. If geography
is so conceived the surface forms for which man is responsible are significant
not only if and in so far as, they demonstrate the influences of the physical
environment, but because, and to the extent, that they are integral elements of

with the natural fundament that it seems better simply to use the word landscape.

For this reason, the expression cultural has not been included m the title of this

Landscape as used here may be defined as quot;the pur^^sory impression .
received by observing a section of the earth\'s surface and the sky above itquot;, i) J
For a scientific presentation, certain selections must be made m dealmg with
these quot;impressionsquot; so that one may differentiate between the essential and the
non-essential The outward appearance of objects varies at different moments;
seasonal hues, for example, form a very conspicuous cycle, especially m the
temperate ^es. Moving bodies are also a part of the scene. Descriptions of
Wall Street without mentioning its crowds, or of Dutch canals without remarking
on the boats, would be incomplete pictures. Though these two categories, of
variable and mobile character, without doubt, form a share of the visible com-
plex the most important features of a region are those of more permanent .
character. The transient elements can only be viewed in a cursory way so as
not to obscure the presentation of the basic pattern 3).

Accompanying a description of the geographically important features must
be an explanation of their significance and origin, telling why the landscape is
as it is There is a methodical value in a distinction between these two parts,
even though the quot;explanationquot; may after all be no more than another descrip-
tion. namely, that of certain correlationsnbsp;. ^

The (cultural) landscape may be considered as the areal expression of human
activity The natural environnm^gt;_thU}indament which man modifies. The
physical milieu contains potential energies; the cultural stage of the occupying
group determines how these latent potentialities are used^) Thus the changes
in the regional pattern are dependent, first, on the nature of the land, and second,
on the character of the people. Modifications in these two factors have their

2)nbsp;T G Granö has been the first one to deal systematically with the methodology
implied in the study of the landscape. It seems, however, as if here the wish to develop
a cOTsequent system has led to a maze of detail which would blur the mam features if actually
incorporated in a description of a landscape. For titles to his papers see bibliography.

Many elements in the landscape of today can not be understood without
knowing the past utilization of the land, and also the processes that determined

the present landscape; the search for explanation of these facts leads him ti the

interwoven with past processes and land patterns that an appreciation of their \'

^^ificance becomes impossible if they are isolated from their earlier assemblages

According to this line of thought, the method of presentation chosen in
this paper is as follows: Chapter II. as a matter of orientation to the subTect .
gives a g hic sketch of the region as it is today; Chapter III is a short
of the fundamentals of the physical setting; Chapter IV surveys the landscape
as It was found by white man. After this introductory material the eSuin^
chapters analyze the transformations which have occurred in the lanlapTfZ
Spanish times up to the present, special e^^f^alis being placed f^st on the
social-ec^omic forces leading to these changes, and second, on tLr ^^^^^^^
—tations X). 0 course there is a constant i»$.^^\'etween mfSh

however, without making the presentation a slave of the princip e Fo efch ^
ITA Tnbsp;determinantslave Len gLn frsf\'

C Changes in manufactured structures, such as houses and roads
Ihe first group, though without doubt of fundamental importance has
played only a minor role in the Santa Clara Valley. The last tL groups L

In this connection, rt quot;d th^ \'^connotations to that effect,
has been avoided in favor of the word cA«*nbsp;^^„„gh lately

Development, in .ts essent.al meanmg irotgttms hL fold a number of adher-
the conception ofnbsp;Ire comparison of geographic areas

deductionsnbsp;basednbsp;onnbsp;thisnbsp;crudenbsp;analognbsp;arenbsp;haz^^^nbsp;bus

also because every change .s fmally a resunbsp;^ ^^^^^^
study of landscape tranrfor—
evidence for this thes-. The^^sg^

areL have been added to this P-Pf • » fe^To tiquot;-
valley, not only in sense of area, but also m sense

The Santa Clara Valley embraces the southern arm of San Francisco Bay
and stretches southeastward between the Coast Ranges for nearly one hundred
kilometers i). The boundaries of the region to which the name Santa Clara Valley
IS commonly applied are well defined to the east and west by the Diablo and the
Santa Cruz Ranges, but to the north and south its limits are less easily determined.

The northern boundary of the valley is usually considered to be the Santa
Clara County line which runs through the southern part of San Francisco Bay
and cuts on either side the narrow strips of land between the bay marshes and
the mountains. This division, however, includes as a part of the valley Palo
Alto on the northwest, which by reason of its suburban pattern belongs to the
metropolitan area of San Francisco. As this study considers principally a rural
territory, it has been deemed better to place the boundary just east of Palo Alto
where the intensive farming country of the Santa Clara Valley is marked from
the suburban territory. The inclusion of the Palo Alto territory is often necessary
however, to enable the use of statistics for Santa Clara County.

As a geostructural unit, the southern extremity of the valley is not difficult
to define, for it is a wide plain encircled by mountains. On the west side are two
gaps, one where the Pajaro River leaves the valley through a narrow opening
between the Santa Cruz Mountains and the hilly LomerJr^, Muertas, the other
directly west of Ho hster where the San Benito River find, its outlet to flow
through a broad valley floor for about thirteen kilometers before joining the
Pajaro River. The par o the San Benito River which hes in the Santa Clara

belonging to the San Benito quot;Valleyquot;; nevertheless, it is inherently a part o

The intensification of agriculture and the estaWishment of related industries
especially canning and packing plants, have been accompanied by a rapid in-
c,ease o popular. The local metropolis San Jose, together with the adjacem
owns of Santa Clara and Willow Glen, has 68,000 inhabitants. Several smaller
towns, such as Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Los Gatos, Gilroy, and Hollister
are local trade and fruit preserving centers and have populations which are
remarkably similar, each numbering just over three thousand. Many of the
people outside these towns live on small sized farms - quot;fruit ranchesquot; The

densüy M 56 ner quot; approximate rura
aensity ol 5b per square kilometer.nbsp;-

The various ways in which white man has used this region during the cen-
ury and a half of his occupation have resulted in definite dianges in\'the Ianquot;

review in a few lines this swift succession of landscape patterns in order o ga n
a vantage point from which the main trend of devipment can b^de e X d
in Its relationship to the maze of detailnbsp;ueiciininea

If we consider that the factors governing the rate of intensity of land utili
ation may be grouped under two headings, first the land resources, and second
he social-economic assets of the occupying group, then it is evident ttot a dt
reas m he resources of the land - absolute or relative loss of valuf- mt

counter balanced, if the people experience a rise in material civilization or
If they are replaced by a more resourceful groupnbsp;viiization, or

the curve will be pressed sharply down, and large portions of the Santa Clara
Valley may necessarily revert from intensively cultivated fruit districts to regions
producing nothing more than small grains and hay.

The Santa Clara Valley is one of strong variations. The intensively culti-
vated valley floor is strikingly dissimilar to the nearly uninhabited ranges sur-
rounding it. Particularly in summer is this notable, for then the green hues of
the valley landscape emphasize the parched, yellow-brown grass cover of the
lower mountain slopes. The opposing mountain groups as well are individual in
their appearance; the Mount Hamilton (Diablo) Range to the east, smooth-
flowing in outline and barren save for grass, is in direct contrast with the
more rugged and forested ridges of the Santa Cruz Range to the west.

An aerial view of the valley reveals three well marked topographical divisions.
The northern part borders the Bay of San Francisco with its broad belt of salt
marsKes and continues south until Coyote Narrows where the mountains almost
converge. This division will be referred to throughout the study as the Bay or
the Northern Section of the Santa Clara Valley. Connecting with the tip of this
bayl-ëgÎOTquot;^t1ïïéT^rows is a slender valley strip bounded by parallel ranges
and trending southeast until it broadens into a slanting southwest base along
rf] the Pajaro River. This ^ngated portion of the valley will be termed the Central
^ Section. South of the Pàîàro River thequot;^alley widens into a br^|a^lain encircled
f by mountains. This will be indicated as the So^hern Section or the Hollister
^ Basin. These three sections in their individual form and space as defined by the
enclosing mountains may be called the primary topographical divisions of the

Before analyzing the cultural development of the valley, we will take a
brief survey of the most characteristic features of the three sections as they
appear today .

The Northern Section
, The most intensively cultivated part of the Santa Clara Valley appears to
be the Bay Section. Here a quot;closed landscapequot; of fruit trees, mostly prunes,
extends over a large portion of the valley floor. At the west these orchards
reach from the Santa Cruz foothills to the San Francisco—San Jose railroad.
At some places, such as the foot of the Santa Teresa Hills, the orchards are
broken by vineyards and large tracts in vegetables and alfalfa. On the east side
of the valley along the base of the Mount Hamilton Range is also a belt of or-
chards, but a narrow one, except for the slightly higher fan of the Penitencia
Creek where the fruit tree formation bulges out into the valley as far as the high-
way from San Jose to Oakland.

This veritable forest of orchards, which has been termed here a quot;closed
landscapequot;,\'^iaifôs an inner V of quot;open landscapequot; that in turn encircles the
marsh border of the San Francisco Bay and points inland along the Guadelupe

and Coyote Rivers till well past San Jose. This region is one of open views across
wide distances of grass lands, alfalfa tracts, and vegetable and berry farms.
Occasionally this low level is interrupted by pear orchards, or by eucalyptus
trees around dairies or other farmsteads, along driveways, or as windbreaks
between fields. The land is cultivated to the verge of the marsh belt, which is
so wide that the presence of the open water of the bay is not obvious.

The large number of towns to the west of the valley is a noticeable feature,
most of them except the city of San Jose being small agglomerations. They are
situated in two rows, one line astride the railroad and highway, which lie parallel
at about a mile\'s distance, and the other string along the foot of the Santa Cruz
Mountains. All have a checkerboard street system, except for some recent addi-
tions; all have a business center of flat-roofed buildings in closed rows along wide,
treeless streets; and all are surrounded by well-shaded residential areas of wooden
or stuccoed houses standing detached amidst bright green lawns. Smoky indus-
tries are absent, the most conspicuous units being the canneries situated usually
near the railroad stations.

On the opposite side of the Bay Section there are only a few settlements.
Amidst the hay fields and on the railroad leading from San Jose to Oakland is
the only town — Milpitas. The steep, barren fi^nt of the Mount Hamilton Range
offers no inviting sites for residences as do the wooded foothills of the Santa
Cruz Range.

In addition to these towns are a number of small trade centers scattered over
the valley, catering, to the local community or to the dense automobile traffic.
The latter business is especially well developed along the road between Santa
Clara and Pal^^Ho-Mayfield, for it is the Pacific Highway leading into San
Francisco. Crowded along this route are all manner of gas stations, garages,
eatmg places, stores, and — in summer — fruit stands.

The orchard distriqt is far more densely settled than the dairy region. The farm
units throughout the entire valley can be distinguished ii^t^two types — one
the old fashioned farmstead, found especially in the Northern Section, with tall\',
ornate house, spacious grounds, shade trees, neglected barns and granaries
seeming rather functionless amidst the orchards; the other with a low. compact
house, no yard, few outbuildings, and the fruit trees almost hiding the assem-

On the marsh border are few farmsteads, and only one small town, the old
port of Alviso which is now almost abandoned. Roads here are consequently
scarce. The cultural landscape very markedly turns its back towards the bay
1 hat this was not always so is shown by the deserted roads leading till well in
the marshes and connecting with several tidal sloughs where some remains of

In the road system of the Northern Section the pure g^n pattern is
absent save m a zone between Santa Clara and Sunnyvale where there are a
number of north-south and east-west roads. The main traffic artery of the valley
stretches northwest from Coyote Narrows to San Jose where it branches to either

side of the bay, the left fork reaching to San Francisco, the right to Oakland
Thus, the road conforms to the natural major features oi the vaHey as doe the
mam railroad. Most of the roads are straight or with gentle curves Ont tho»
are wmd.ng which follow the water courses in the valley or ante the m^ntair
Ex ept for some of the older roads, the highways in thL appearancequot;^
thefc, and especially so on the open bay landscape where the tZhol Xquot;
and barbed wire fences are unhidden by treesnbsp;«lepnone poles

Perhaps more worthy of mention is the time-worn redwood fence which
gams si^ificance because of its recurrent appearance, and because i Ts remta 3

blem. These rStenants of an earlier period still outline many fields and oastures

for the properties are not enclosed save where these old fences persist n a
seemingly haphazard fashion through the fruit tree forest

The creek beds, narrow and deeply incised in the higher parts of the vallev
become shallower downstream until near the bay they lie between nltural

Orchards cover the greater part of the Central Section, a continuous horti
cul ural wood that completely hems in the highway-railroad tracteTrom Co^ol

valley west of Coyote Station a reclaimed marsh has been planted to vegetables
and seed crops, while along the east side the wide gravel bed of the Coyote
Kiver precludes cultivation. Where orchards approach the mountains thev
usually end knife sharp along the foot of the slopesnbsp;^

Further south in the neighborhood of IVfadrone, land becomes more oDen
Orchards are interspersed with vineyards, tomato fields, and hay landsTe
latter being offered quot;for sale and subdivision into small fruit ranches\' Fvi
where scattered in the fields and „sing above the surrounding frj treel aT;
large live oaks with wide-spreading crowns. Orchards becomenbsp;!

1. View towards the northeast over
the alkali flat of the quot;Bolsaquot;; the
dirt road covered with a white salt
crust. In the distance dairy farms on
the edge of the flat; behind them
orchards on the higher loams at the
foot of the Diablo Range.

2. Spring landscape: looking across
the Central Section towards the cast,
ane- mih\'\' sonatii: af T\'c-m,-\'» Statian.. In

clay loam) and chaparral woodland
on foot of Santa Cruz Mountains.
Ocliards and vineyard on Yolo silt
loam. Note drving field in right center.

3. Winter landscape: looking across
the Central Section towards the
northeast from the wooded foot of
the Santa Cruz Range opposite Perry\'s
Station. Vineyard and orchards on
on Dublin clay loam; iiay grain fields
(plowed) on Dublin clay adobe; in
distance dense orchard landscape on
Yolo silt loam. Note authochtonous
evergreen oaks amidst the culture
landscape of deciduous fruit trees. At
the foot of the bare Diablo Range the
tree lined Coyote Creek.

Creek, they gradually give way to vegetable fields and, as in the Northern Sec-
tion, to alfalfa tracts associated with dairy farms.

The towns and minor settlement clusters of the Central Section are situated
along the principal line of transportation, all save a small group of houses signif-
icantly characterized as quot;Old Gilroyquot;. quot;Newquot; Gilroy is situated on the railroad
and highway, and is the main center for rural trade and industrial establishments
for the packing and canning of local products. The only other town in this region
is Morgan Hill, much smaller and younger than Gilroy and situated about
midway in the Central Section. Between these towns and the Narrows are only
two small trade centers and a number of gas stations and stores, all located along
the highway.

One hardly realizes that the flat valley floor near Morgan Hill forms the
divide between the drainage territory of the San Francisco Bay and that of
Monterey Bay. This fact is not noticeable at first because the Coyote River lies
along the eastern margin of the Valley, hidden by orchards, and because Llagas
Creek draining to the south has, like the Coyote, seldom a water stream.

Not far southeast of Gilroy the narrow valley floor widens as the Mount
Hamilton Range retreats to the east. The Pacific Highway and the railroad to
Los Angeles keep close to the west side of the Valley and finally leave the Pajaro
River gap between the Santa Cruz Range and the low, grassy Lomerias Muertas.

The highly developed cultural landscape north of the tree-bordered Pajaro
River finds a striking contrast in the barren plain to the south. The Valley has
here expanded into a broad basin. Crossing the river, a gravel road extends
southeast towards Hollister through miles oS desolate country devoid oihahha-

Far to the east o£ this grass}\' level, \\uIlow thickets indicate several sftaffow
sloughs which drain into the San Felipe Lake, the principal one being the Tequis-
quita Slough. The western portion of the Bolsa de San Felipe, as the Spanish
name designates the barren, cervtisil part oi the pVa\\u, k ptaeticaWy tteeVess atvd
entirely without water courses.

During tlie winter most oi this quot;Bolsaquot; is wet, evaporation after the rains
leaving a white alkali cover on the fields and roads i). In summer it affords but
a sparse grazing for cattle. This alkali flat spreads east from the Santa Cruz
foothills and north of Hollister for about forty square kilometers. On the north,
east and southeast, it is bordered by a belt oi dairy farms amidst alfalfa fields
and large tracts of hay grains. These in turn are bounded by an irregular semi-
circle of orchards which reach into the mountains wherever creek bottoms
offer fertile soil, leaving the mountain slopes to the stbck farms. This belt of
orchards, interspersed with truck farms and seed fields, continues on the
gradually rising plain until southeast of Hollister it peters out with the increasing
roughness of the topography and the unfavorable character of the soils. To the

south and west of the town, the wide gravelly bed of the San Benito River offers
no foothold for orchards.

Save for a few cross-road stores in the northeast of the basin, the sole ser-
vice center is HolHster, the capital of San Benito County. Symptomatic for the
settlement barring influence of the Bolsa is the road pattern. The only road
entering the alkah flat cuts straight across for Hollister, sending a half circle
branch through the rim of dairy and orchard lands. From Hollister directly
west a road leads to the small, old mission town of San Juan Bautista,
where it joins the Pacific Highway coming from the other side of the low
Lomerias Muertas from Gilroy. The highway which connects the Santa Clara
with the San Joaquin Valley to the east branches from the Pacific Highway
at Gilroy and skirts the extreme northern edge of the Bolsa to enter the
Pacheco Pass.

This description of the Santa Clara Valley applies principally to a summer
landscape. In midwinter the hills are green instead of yellow, and the Valley pre-
sents a patchwork of dark plowed fields and of bare orchards. The naked branches
of the prune trees have a greyblack fitfe and those of the apricots brown. The
evergreen oak trees, scattered among them, now stand in full view. The creek-
beds, dry most of the year, occasionally have a sudden flow after heavy rains.

Early spring dots the bright grass of the hills and fields with flowers, espec-
ially with the orange California Poppy (Escholzia Californica). The culturaUand-
scape grows then to its height of beauty: first come the^li^\'^nd blossoms, then the
peach, the apricot, and finally the prune, transforming the fruit tree forest until,
when viewed from a hillside, the whole Valley seems a vast flower hed^).

The seasonal rhythm of agricultural labor keeps pace with the succession
of vegetational scenes: in the late autumn the plowing of fields, irrigating, and
pruning of orchards; in spring the spraying, quot;smudgingquot; to protect early blossoms
from the night frosts, and perhaps again irrigating. Harvfeifjg begins in spring
and continues until late November. In the latter half of March and the first of
April come spinach and early varieties of peas, followed by lefife. Grain is
harvested for hay in May or June, and in early July for grain. About this time
the apricots are picked and dried on trays in the sun, forming conspicuous orange
patches in the countryside. In the same month follow the early peach varieties.
Then the season comes to its height with the prune harvest.

About the same time as the prune harvest comes that of the pear — in
the first week of August. Almonds and grapes are ready in September and
walnuts the first part of October. From early September until November the
tomatoes for canning purposes are harvested. Three pickings are made of the
strawberries, the first about the end of March and the last late in fall. Alfalfa
may be cut five or six times during the season. In addition to the harvest work,
much care is needed during the summer for the proper irrigation of the tomatoes,\'
strawberries and alfalfa.

Canning, packing and transporting the manifold crops of the Santa Clara
Valley to all parts of the United States and of the world means work in the
cities and towns for thousands of people, and has its repercussion on the entire
social-economic life of the region.

A veritable army of quot;pickersquot; appears for the long fruit harvest. Many of
these itinerant workers tramp through the state in yearly cycles, following the
harvests from south to north and back. In early spring there is an invasion of
thousands of Mexicans, camping on field corners, or housing in barracks and
shacks. Native farm hands of better means occupy the tourist cabins; others
stake tents in the camp yards. These temporary camps appear like the villages
of a nomadic population.

At the end of October when the main harvest is over and the canneries begin
to close, when the pickers are gone and the tramps are moving south, the Valley
with its nearly stripped trees looks almost desolate in comparison with its heyday
of summer.

of this group lies nearer to the Vallevth,^/ j ^ mam watershed
a steep northeastern slo^e ^A^ hHasTe^ foo^nbsp;escarpment with

latter probably of upper Jurassic age. These are mostly metamorphosed sedi-
mentary materials, including conglomerates, sandstones and shales. At many
places igneous formations occur, among them serpentine masses notable because
of their quicksilver content.

On the other side of the Santa Clara Valley is a mountainous block extend-
ing east to the San Joaquin Valley and known as the Diablo Range. The portion
of this highland belt between the Livermore Valley on the north and Pacheco
Pass on the south is usually called the Mount Hamilton Range, so named be-
cause of its highest mountain, 1400 meters in altitude. The Diablo Range is
characterized by almost even crests, varying between five and eleven hundred
meters above sea level. These mountains greatly protect the Valley from the
hot disiccating summer air of the Great Interior Valley of California, as well as
from cold air accumulating there at times in winter and spring. Though less is
known of the geology of the eastern ranges than that of the western, the forma-
tions seem to consist principally of the San Franciscan series. Here also the narrow,
parallel valleys between the ridges are an effect of faulting. The Coyote River,
which follows several of these troughlike depressions through the Diablo Moun-
tains, thereby turns on itself three times before reaching the main valley floor.

According to the climatic system of Koppen, the Santa Clara Valley lies
in the zone of mesothermal climate (C), and is characterized further by at least
three times as much rainfall in its wettest winter month as received during the
driest summer month (s), the combination of which (Cs) is often indicated as
the_Mediterranean type of climate. Furthermore, the average of the warmest
summer month is less than 22 degrees Celsius, or 71 degrees Fahrenheit (b). Thus,
the Santa Clara Valley can be said to have) a^sbj^^jmate.?^.nbsp;, cb \'^^^IlizXr\'

During summer, winds from the high pressure area off the coast flow to
the hot interior. As this drift rushes through the Golden Gate and over the
bordering low hills, a part of the current is turned south into the Santa Clara
Valley. Moreover, the heated lower air of the land expands and becomes lighter
than the air of the Bay. Thus, during the summer, the prevailing winds in the
Valley come from the northwest; they are then strongest, with an average of ten
miles an hour. In addition to the Golden Gate, there are three other gaps by
which the ocean winds enter the Valley: the Merced Valley, which is a down-
faulted strip a few kilometers south of San Francisco; a low depression in the
Santa Cruz Mountains near Los Gatos; the Pajaro gap with adjoining foothills.
The last gateway is especially effective, for as the currents reach the Valley
they are deflected to the north and south, causing persistent southern winds
in the region just below Gilroy, western winds at Hollister, which is opposite
the gap, and northern winds in the uplands south of the basin. In the region
of Gilroy proper the winds are more variable, for there the currents meet from
the north and from the south. In winter the winds of the Valley are cyclonic of

nature and therefore far more changeable in direction as well as m velocity.
fu.J unbsp;valley phenomenon of night air fefege is here accen-

tuated by wo factors: first of these is the relatively low temperature of the
air at sea level caused by the up-welling of cold water along the coast;
the second is the comparatively high temperature of the free atmosphere,
a condition peculiar to subtropical regions. Thus at night cold air con-
r iTi.quot;.. . bottomlands, and relatively warm air, partly rising but
checked by the afore-mentioned warmer strata, and partly descending from these
strata, spreads over the elevated valley portions. This climatic feature has
a marked effect on the land utilization (see p 83)

\\ The precipitation in the Santa Clara Valley i) is mainly determined by the
prevailing westerly wmds, the nearness of the ocean, and the presence of moun-
,tain ranges lying at right angles to the course of the air currents. The amount
of annual rainfall vanes considerably. Often wet and dry years occur in series,
years of abundant rams tending to bring the Valley great prosperity, and a
prolonged dry period usually resulting in serious distress, especially because of
the ever increasing use of the ground water for irrigation (see p. 115). The
wet season extends from November till March inclusive, very little or no rain
falling during the summer months. The rainfall comes in periods, a few days
of ram, seldom exceeding ten, followed by dry and most pleasant weather.

In the geographic distribution of the rainfall there are not only marked
contrasts between the Valley and the bordering mountain areas but as well in
the Valley itself. The bay margin receives a greater rainfall than inland parts ^
of the Northern Section; the amount also rises in the foothills, and rapidly
Los Gatos, by its situation in front of one of the mountain gaps, has comparatively ^
a very high precipitation. Thus, between Campbell and Los Gatos, a distance
of seven and a half kilometers and a difference in elevation of one hundred and

A. G. McAdie, 149ff; W. O. Clark, II, 34—50; E. S. Nichols, 509—SH- r™f ttt
(Tibbetts and Kieffer), plate 8.nbsp;^ \'

twenty-eight meters, the annual precipitation increases from 15.51 inches to
32.83. In the Central Section, the valley floor near Morgan Hill receives more
^rain than do the bottomlands of the Northern Section. From Morgan Hill south
the precipitation steadily diminishes until it reaches at Hollister the absolute
minimum of the Valley. Though in general the amount of rain increases rapidly
with the altitude, the mountains nearer the coast receive far more than do those
to the east. In the Santa Cruz Mountains, in the\'viamty of Loma Prieta Peak
(1269 meters), the yearly average is 50 inches i), while at the Lick Observatory,
nearly the highest point of the Mount Hamilton Range (1403 meters), the annual
mean is 29.07 inches.

Here follows a table showing the monthly and annual means of precipitation
at stations in or near the Valley. Niles is situated sixteen kilometers north of
the area studied, at the base of the foothills of the Diablo Range; Menlo Park
is on the northwest edge of the Valley near the Bay; Lick Observatory lies in the
mountains twenty-three kilometers due east of San Jose; and Ben Lomond, in
the Santa Cruz Range, is in the narrow valley of the San Lorenzo River, thirty-
nine kilometers west of Morgan Hill and fifteen kilometers from the Pacific Ocean.

TABLE OF MEAN MONTHLY AND ANNUAL PRECIPITATION (IN INCHES)
AT STATIONS IN OR^NEAR SANTA CLARA VALLEY

16.14
3.77

3.69
5.48
3.17
2.88
3.54
7.84
7.06
4.84

2.70

2.08

1.24

1.40

2.41
0.98
1.10
0.68
1.70

1.25
1.47
1.01

8.02
3.01
3.35

5.45
2.73

2.46
2.58
6.04
3.43
3.33
2.06

56.16
16.88
18.79
29.07

15.54
14.53
15.51
32.83

23.55
20.01
12.72

1)nbsp;Report III contains an isohyetose map constructed from projected data representing
long period ramfall for Santa Clara Valley and surrounding mountains. Partially renro-
duced in W. O. Clark, II, 38 and in S. W. Cosby and E. B. Watson I eOquot;?

2)nbsp;Summaries of Climatological Data (till 1922). For the years 1922—1930 figures
are reported only for the stations at San Jose, Santa Clara, Lick Observatory and Holhster
(Monthly Weather Review). For these stations the data are brought up to 1931 paX S
the kind assistance of the Koninklijk Nederlandsch Meteorologisch Instituut The data for
the other stations are up to 1922, as given in the Summaries, except for Morgan H U
Records of the Weather Bureau, published by W. O. Clark, I, 68nbsp;^viorgan Hill.

By Its protected location the Santa Clara Valley enjoys, on the whole,
moderate and very favorable temperatures peculiarly suited to the growing of
deciduous fruits. Of the entire Valley, the Bay Section is the coolest in summer

MEAN MONTHLY AND ANNUAL TEMPERATURES
FOR STATIONS IN THE SANTA CLARA VALLEY (in, degrees Fahrenheit)

59.9
60.1

58.2

60.3

60.4

and Gilroy the warmest. The Southern Section, tempered by the ocean winds,
which come through the Pajaro Gap. has a cooler summer and a warmer winter\'\'
than the Gilroy region which, by reason of its relatively inland location where
It IS least influenced by ocean winds from the north and south, has the widest
range between the warmest and coldest months.

Heavy frosts^ do not occur, though in winter the night temperature often
goes some degrees below zero. There are on record temperatures of 18 and 20
degrees F, but those are quite exceptional. Naturally, a matter of high impor-
tance m this fruit country is the killing frosts. Though for some stations the
records do not extend back for more than a few years, it seems from the follow-
ing table that the center of the Bay Section suffers more freezes than do the
direct Bay environs and the foothill belt, which benefit, respectively, by the
tempering influence of the water and by air drainage.

Nov.

Oct.

Nov.

Oct.

Nov.

Oct.

yeargt;) but seldom m summer. Light fogs are not infrequem. In tie Hoffis er
Ba m fogs occasaonally enter through the Pajaro gap. In summer, a quot;high fogquot;
art ,s locally called, often hangs over the vaUey in the morning houff Zt
of the days however, are sunny, especially in the Central and SoutC sectW
The character of the insolation is for a good deal responsible forquot;quot;
horticulture m this region. The length of day at winter solstice is 9 6 h™quot; and
at summer solstice 14.7 hours. The midday altitude of the sun rt,
date is about 29 degrees, in the latter about 76 degrés MoL™nbsp;T

The semi-aridity of the climate causes the water rnnrlt;=P= k
cally dry in summer, but in wet seasons TJTnbsp;.

mittent streams usually carry a I\'g\'e aLo^^^ ^dftr 1 inC^on to kf
narrow valley floor a^\'tta^form ^^nbsp;^P\'\'quot;™® \'he

that the river has shifted its cou^e overnbsp;, Udometer. There is evidence
its flow to the north

fans. On the east si of Sorthe^^f fnbsp;\'hquot;^ b-Uing extensive
a fan with a gradien^f stl L Lnnbsp;the Penitencia Creek has formed
_ ® ^nbsp;per kilometer. On the west side of

2 Summ^ies etc.; length o£ record, fifteen years.
^ J. C. Branner, 1—9.nbsp;\'

the Valley before the broken foothills are many fans grown together making a
compound fan. The slope is here less steep than on the east valley edge, for
the small streams each have a limited drainage area, and the well wooded Santa
Cruz Mountains tend to make torrents less heavy than those issuing from the
barren Diablo Ranges:i~Deposition over the fans has now practically ceased. The
creeks flow in sharply incised beds, a fact perhaps indicating a recent change
in the level of the land. Along the lower parts of the rivers, however, aggradation
is still in progress; near their mouths are several dry channels, usually amidst
low natural levees, marking abandoned stream courses.

The sedimentary deposits which make up the valley floor consist of a hetero-
geneous mass of irregular bodies of clay, gravel, and sand, with clay as the dom-
inant constituent. Gravel and sand layers embedded between clay form a com-
plex of large underground reservoirs (aquifers) for the water that has percolated
through the upper fan parts. In both the Northern and Southern Sections the
water-bearing alluvial deposits dip towards the center of the valley floor. More-
over, in the Northern Section along the Bay margin is an extensive layer of
impervious clay material which prevents the water from escaping either to the
surface or to the Bay. In the Hollister Basin the same conditions exist: the
underground drainage is halted in the north by the higher groundwater level,
and to the west by the rock rim of the Pajaro River Canyon. The result in both
territories, therefore, is the existence of groundwater under artesian pressure
Nearly all of the wells in these districts have in recent years ceased to flow be-
cause of the lowering groundwater table. As late as 1924 flowing wells still existed
in a triangular area around the bay stretching south and east from the marshes
as far as the railroad Mayfield—San Jose and San Jose—Milpitas, while in the
Southern Section there was a similar situation in a district of thirty-five square
miles, centering in the Bolsa.

The rivers transport the finer sediments till in the Bay, where the presence
of salt causes flocculation, and thus a heavy deposit of silt all along the shore,
especially near river mouths. Under this mud stratum, on a depth varying from
a decimeter to a meter or more, lies a thick layer of blue clay. The deposition
of alluvial material is still actively going on, gradually extending the marsh rim
further into the Bay. This swampy borderland lies at about the level of average
high tide and is traversed by meandering river channels and numerous tidal
sloughs. On the land side of this tidal marsh are higher alluvial deposits, forming
a belt of heavy-textured dark quot;adobequot; soils, skirted on the more elevated fans
by soils of lighter consistency.

Three main groups of soil formations can be distinguished in the Santa
Clara Valley:

2)nbsp;L. C. Holmes and J. W. Nelson, 30 ff; S. W. Cosby and E. B. Watson, I, 607; II.
653 ff.

mountains and hills on both sides of the valley, and on the isolated knolls
that rise above the valley floor.

v/ 2. Old, transported soils, resulting from long continued physical and chemical
modification of old water laid deposits, and characterized by definite hori-
zonts and heavier subsoils than 3; except for a large body in the Central
Section, they are mostly eroded and only occur on benches and terraces
. along the edges of the valley.

^ Recently transported soils, occurring on present stream flood plains, on allu-
vial fans, and occasionally in young stream terraces; because of the immatur-
ity of such soils, their structure is rather uniform.

The soil map (map 2, plate II) accompanying this paper is based upon the
official United States Surveys. Whereas the purpose here is not to classify accord-
ing to the mode of formation, but rather to indicate agronomic values the
grouping used is somewhat different from that of the Bureau of Soils In the
mam, the classification here presented is an adaption of the system employed
by S. W. Cosby in his study on the correlation between soils and land utilization
in the Gilroy region i). The numerous soil types of the valley have thus been
arranged, on the basis of their general physical characteristics, in seven groups
and one sub-group. For convenience, they will be indicated in this paper by the
names of those soil types which are most prevalent in each group

I. Recent alluvial soils of light to medium texture, deposited under condi-
tions of adequate drainage. These are deep, friable, well-drained soils of
medium to high fertility. (This group may be called Yolo loams)

la. Soils of the same character as I, but with a high gravel content (Yolo
gravelly loams).

II. Recent alluvial soils of heavy texture, generally deposited under condi-
tions of restricted drainage. Characteristically, these have an adobe struc-
ture a very high water-holding capacity, and are of high fertility {Dxiuiin
[clay) adobes).

III.nbsp;Recent alluvial soils, belonging to groups I and II, where alkaline salts
have concentrated in considerable quantities, ranging from 0.4 to more

IV.nbsp;Old transported soils of gravelly character having relatively permeable
subsoils. These soils possess a lower content of organic matter and are
o a somewhat lower fertility than the recent alluvial soils {Pleasanton loams).

V.nbsp;Old transported soils having non-calcareous, heavy-textured, compact
and relatively impervious subsoils, which limit the root system develop-
ment and impede the movement of water {Pinole-Rincon loams)

VI. Old transported soils having medium to heavy-textured surface soils
X.TTnbsp;compact calcareous subsoils {Montezuma clays)

yil. Restdual soils, being of minor agricultural importance because of their
typically shallow depth and hilly topography

The group occupying the Santa Clara Valley up to the arrival of the Span-
iards consisted of In^ans who fished, hunted small animals, and gathered plant
ƒ food. Their low cultural level materially limited their capacities for modifying
I the habitat; though there is reason to believe that they did not leave it en-
tirely in its original state, the extent of these alterations _can not be gauged. By
speaking here of the primitive landscape, allowance is made for the possible
changes which the Indians may have caused in the natural vegetational cover
of the region. Inasmuch as the continuity between the local Indian culture and
that of the white man is only slight, the significant datum line for this study is
marked by the coming of the Spaniards. To understand the setting of white man\'s
activity, it is necessary to reconstruct as far as possible the appearance of the
valley as the Spanish first saw it.

The Bay of San Francisco was discovered in 1769 when the first over-land
expedition north of Monterey Bay followed the coast up to the Golden Gate.
A small party extended its explorations along the southern shore of the bay,
reconnoitering well into the Santa Clara Valley i). The important discovery
of^ the bay prompted a series of expeditions to investigate further the region
ariC-J to select strategic points for settlement.

Naturally, the diaries of the explorers contain valuable material concerning
the aspects of the new country. Four journeys through the Santa Clara Valley
are of outstanding value here because of the illuminating narratives they produced.
These are: the two expeditions of Don Pedro Fages, the first in November 1770 2),
the second in March 1772 3); an exploration in November 1774 under command

2)nbsp;The expedition to San Francisco Bay in 1770; diary of Pedro Fages, edited bv
H. E. Bolton.

3)nbsp;Descriptions by Fr. Crespi whose diary has been included in the writings of the
contemporary historian, Fray Francisco Palou, O.F.M. See Palou\'s quot;Historical Memoirs
of New Californiaquot;, translated into English from the M. S. in the archives in Mexico and
edited by E. H. Bolton, 4 volumes. Vol. II, 330 ff. See also Pedro Fages, Documents;
a historical, political, and natural description of California. Translated by H. I. Priestly!

Palou\'s diary has two versions. One was forwarded to the Viceroy the other is
incorporated in Palou\'s Memoirs (see note 3), Volume III, 248—308. The forrner is inserted
in H. E. Bolton\'s quot;Anza\'s California Expeditionsquot;, 5 volumes. Vol. II, p 393_456.

and finally the journey of Colonel de Anza in March 1776 of which Pedro
Font has kept a diary i).

It will be noted that two parties visited the valley in March and two in
November, all, therefore, in the rainy season though not at its height There is
of course, some difference in the descriptions of the November and the March
landscapes, especially in the quantity of water in the streambeds, the quality of
the pasture, and the extent of the water-logged areas. Keeping these seasonal
variations m mmd, one can reconstruct from the Spanish narratives the follow-
ing picture of the valley.

Behind the amphibious saltmarsh bordering the San Francisco Bay lav ,
an open meadowlike belt. Willow thickets skirted the stream courses and filled \'
the shght surface depressions which the rainy season converted into impassable
swamp lands. Very likely this zone conforms approximately with the area of
adobe soils along the bay, as indicated on Map 2 (plate II)

Nearer to the encircling mountains was a parklike country. This plain
except for an area at the foot of the Santa Cruz Mountains (see p. 30), was covered
with bunch grasses and with oaks and evergreen oaks widely scattered or in
clusters. Edging the deeply incised arroyos were heavy stands of alder, cotton-
wood laurel, and blackberry. (See photo 4). To the northwest, on the fan of the
San Francisquito Creek, were redwoods, one of them standing apart and forming

Above the foothills - of which not much is told - the Santa Cruz Range
he valley then as now was barren except for a growth of laurels quot;on one slope

Where the valley widens into the Southern Basin, oaks became scarce
Toward the south along the Tequesquita Slough were numerousnbsp;aTih
and here the grassy plain became treeless, brkn only by Z^rerflmSd
pools and by stream courses, indicated by gallery forests of\'cottonJl quot;
sycamore, and alder. The mountains to the east and south were grass cove^d
and wth some hve oaks in their canyons. The low hills to the wL Lre ako
treeless but the higher mountain slopes beyond were vested with criers
__and recent ecological research furnish material to supple-

H Fnbsp;^\'\'P!,\'quot;«»\'\' 1\'75-\'76. Diary of Pedro Font. Edited by F J Te„art

ment the Spanish narratives. It is apparent that the contrast that today exists
between the bare ranges to the east and the wooded ones of the west was also
present m the primitive landscape. The unlikeness in vegetation of these moun-
tam slopes lies in the amount of rain received and in the degree of exposure to
sunlight. The northeast face of the Santa Cruz Range receives far less sunshine
than does the southwest incline of the Diablo Range, thereby causing a material
difference in the water balance, and thus in the vegetative growth. This same
dissimilarity is shown on a smaller scale in the east-west trending canyons of the
Diablo Range; on the shaded south are thick growths of chaparral — live oak,
laurel, hollyleaf-cherries, and shrubs; on the opposite side is but a grass cover\'
(Photo 5).

Before the invasion of the lumber industry, the Santa Cruz Range had on
Its highest elevations a majestic stand of redwood mixed with Douglas fir. Below
this, on the Santa Clara Valley side, stretched a zone of Douglas fir, and still
lower, on the foothills, was a cover of more or less stunted hardwoods, mostly
evergreen, together with a thick undergrowth of shrubs such as Ceanothus, Rhus
laurina, and Adenostoma. Much of the conifer forest has now been replaced
by the latter formation. Wherever fires and subsequent erosion have seriously
affected the top soil, a shrub cover has taken possession of the territory. Thus, it
may be concluded that formerly the extent of the chaparral woodland and of
the chamisal in the mountains must have consequently been much less^).

On the foregoing page it was indicated that the grass-oak community which
extended over most of the valley floor did not entirely cover that portion between
the foothills of the Santa Cruz Range and the present highway. There is some
controversy concerning the character of the early vegetation in this region.
According to W. S. Cooper, it was less than half a century ago solid chaparral
with Adenostoma as the typical species — in other words, a chamisal cover 2).
The present grass-oak association, which is still to be found on the upper fan
parts between the tracts of cropland, Cooper assumes to have been caused by
repeated burning of the chaparral (chamisal). On the other hand the California
State Forest Service, through the results of experiments and years of close
observation, is of the opinion that chamisal in Central California is typical for
areas where the top soil has been depleted, especially as a result of burning over
and subsequent erosion. After a brush stand has been destroyed by a heavy
fire. It may be succeeded for the interval of a few years by a grass cover, but
usually chaparral spreads vigorously and soon regains dominance of the region
— more densely than before 3). If these observations are correct it is difficult to
see how grass could definitely succeed chamisal after burning.

and from the California State Forest Service. Berkeley, Cal., which is hereby eratefnllv
acknowledged.nbsp;® «»tciuiiy

3)nbsp;The writer is indebted to Prof. A. W. Sampson, Berkeley, California, for personal

information on this subject, and for the privilege of reading his manuscript quot;The Manage-
ment of California Rangesquot;.nbsp;^nbsp;ivianage

o. View to the west through Metcalfe
Canyon, in the Mount Hamilton (Di-
ablo) Range opposite Coyote Narrows
North slope almost treeless, shadetl
south slope well-covered with cliapar-
raJ. Santa Cruz Range in background.

Yet, though a pure chamisal cover as the original vegetation for the west
side of the Bay Section seems, therefore, unlikely, it can not be concluded that,
when the Spaniards arrived, oaks and grass formed the landscape here as in
other parts of the valley. From historical data it is evident that this particular
region which lies on the higher portions of the composite creek fans consisted
in earlier days of a mixed chaparral-woodland interspersed with open spaces
of grass and scattered oak stand. The passage best describing the appearance of
this landscape in early Spanish days may be quoted here in part Having
entered the Northern Section of the Santa Clara Valley through the Coyote
Narrows, the expedition under Rivera turned to the northwest. quot;We foundquot;,
writes Palou, quot;that the Valley continues with good pastures and well grown
with oaks.quot; They make a detour because of quot;a large marsh with much tulequot; —
[the quot;Willowsquot; south of San Jose?] and then proceed over quot;the plain of good
land, partly wooded with small trees resembling junipers [?] and among them
some larger madrones.quot; They cross several arroyos quot;with plenty of trees but no
waterquot; and camp for the night at one of these creeks — according to Bolton, the
Calabazas Creek. The next day they travel further to the northwest to San Fran-
cisquito Creek (Palo Alto). This trip took more time quot;for although it has been
all over level ground, yet it has been troublesome on account of the thick groves
of junipers and madrones... although the woods were interspersed with good
spots of land covered with grass, oaks, and live oaks.quot;

These quotations clearly prove that part of the composite fan was covered
with a dense chaparral-woodland formation, among which were madrones and
quot;junipersquot;, the latter apparently a misnomer as junipers do not occur at this low
altitude. They also show that there were a number of open tracts between. In the
direct vicinity of Palo Alto, which locality, in Cooper\'s opinion, was once dense
chaparral 2), Palou reported that the party camped quot;in a very broad plain which
has good - pastures for the animals and many oaks and live oaksquot; 3). A party travel-
ling in 1826 through the valley from San Francisquito Creek to Santa Clara
reports: quot;the noble clusters of oak were now varied with shrubberies...quot; The
more or less scattered occurrence of chaparral is also apparent from an old
survey map ®) of the proposed road from Santa Clara to quot;the bridge over the
San Francisquito Creekquot; (the site of the present Palo Alto) made in 1852 on which
the vegetation is sketched. This map, though very rude, shows oaks west of
Santa Clara, and, about the place where later Mountain View was established,
a marsh with willows and, west of this to the county line, oaks north of the
proposed road and tongues of quot;chaparralquot; stretching from the south as far as
the road. The writer also learned from old settlers of the valley that, in earlier
days, the brush-woodland association was not a solid formation.

5)nbsp;Office of the County Supervisor at San Jose. Mapbook, vol. I, 35, 1852_perhaps

of g^s ™th oaks, partly evergreen varieties, scattered or in opefgroves
The, classic description of Captain Vancouver, who travelled from San
Francisco to the Santa Clara Mission in 1792, gives such an excellent Srure^
this charactenstic oak-grass landscape that it may not be omittedTere A

been c eared away, and had left the stately lords of the forest in complete pos\'equot;

to the most studied effect of taste in the disposal of grounds ...quot;.) (See photo 6)

The absence of undergrowth was also observed by other travellers during
he Spanish period. Bartlett^), who visited the region in 1852, attributes this to
fir« or to the browsing of Spanish cattle. In pre-Spanish days there were no

lobata) which IS usually found on the vaUey floor, and the coast or California live
oaL(Quercus agrifolia Née), the most characteristic tree of the valley and the
only evergpen of the three here mentioned\'). In some places in the hills the
live oak IS found in great abundance, though mostly in scrub form. Open stands
Of these trees prevail though groves occur. The well developed trees are six to twelve
meters high, broad crowns surmounting short boles. The grass cover, usually

) M. Costanzo, 113; G. H. von Langsdorf. vol. II, 101 (German edition^ Rof.nv of
the Voyage of H. M. S. Sulphur,3. ^ \'nbsp;^ au eaition). Botany of

associated with the oak landscape, consisted in the early days mainly of peren
nials such as needle grasses (Stipa), oat grasses (Danthonia) and awn grasses
(Aristida); m later times these were practically exterminated by overgrazing i)
The picture of the Santa Clara Valley in primitive days would not be com
pl^without sketching in the Indian settlements. Their small grasshut villages
of one to five hundred inhabitants, were usually situated on the border of an
a^oyo, or, if possible, near a pool containing water through the summer 2) The
settlements had little permanency, however; Palou, for example, tells of deserted
villages and notes new ones in places where none had been seen on previous
expeditions 3). A number of settlements lay along the bay shore, as is indicated
by a number of mo^unds and kitchen middens in that region. It is remarkable
that only one of the Spamsh explorers, Pedro Font, mentions these shell heaps
On the map by Nelson eighteen sites of mounds are noted in the Santa Qara
^^alley: three along the Guadelupe River south of Alviso, fourteen small ones n
the j^ain northeast and east of Mountain View, and a larger one north of Castro
Station, northwest of Mountam View. Except for the three along the Guadelupe
and possibly the Castro Mound near which the Permanente Creek found its Ty

a river out et. They he between one and three kilometers from the present shore-
A . T^ quot; half kilometers more from the open water of the bay
„ Anudst the dominant physical environment, these human settlelnts weJe
mere transitory elements, scattered and fodom. The Indians dep nrd fo the r

evel 0 their civilization precluded any planned use of the land of which tilling
the soil is the fundamental economic expression

each a step m the progress from extensive to intensive use of the land These
transmutations in the landscape, and the forces that determined hem quot;Jll b
considered in the following chapters.

1) Atlas of American Agriculture, part I, section E 7—8
S Crespi\'s diary in F. Palou. vol. II, 333 ff; F. Palou, vol.\' Ill, 258.
) H. E. Bolton, II, vol. II, 416; F. Palou, vol. HI 261
\') Diary of Pedro Font in Bolton, II, vol. IV, 355. \'
N. C. Nelson; see also E. W. Gifford, 7 ff\'.

f The Spanish colonization of the Santa Clara Valley, during the last quarter
of the eighteenth century, formed part of the shifting north of the Latin Euro-
pean frontier. Until then the Spanish had evinced little interest in the Pacific
coast north of Mexico proper. Their efforts had been concentrated east of the
Sierra Nevada where they had pushed over the Rio Grande and established
Santa Fe among the Pueblo Indians, a stronghold which marked the western
point of a long line of settlements that swung around the southern edge of the
great plains, where the nomadic warrior tribes defied all colonization, up through
Texas to the timbered country, and as far east as Florida i). Although mission-
aries. from the time of Vizcaino\'s voyage in 1602. had drawn attention to California
as a promising field for their work, it was not until a century and a half later
that the Spamsh Crown, alarmed by the appearance of Russians on the Pacific
coast, decided to take actual possession of the country. This move suddenly
threw the western wing of the Spanish frontier farther north than at any other
point on the long border line.

Just as the French colonization work in America was headed by the fur
trader and missionary, the Anglo-American by fur trader and backwoodsman,
so the Spanish was represented by the combined forces of conquistador and
missionary 2). The close connection between state and church in the Spanish
empire led these two institutions to collaborate in frontier countries though
their aims were often different. The eight years from 1769 to 1777 witnessed an
admirable piece of colonization in California — the establishment of a string
of missions and presidios from San Diego north to the Bay of San Francisco, a
distance of more than one thousand kilometers. The military garrisons, upon
whom actual political possession of the country depended, necessarily were
located on strategic points near the sea where they could be most easily in con-
tact with the Mexican supply base. The building of the missions and the spiritual
side of the conquest was left to- the San Franciscan order, which in 1768 had
succeeded the Jesuits. The plan of occupance was modelled after that which
experience in other regions of New Spain had proved most successful.

the ^cinity, and with timber in the adjacent mountains, fulfiUed all the require-
ments for which Crespi, Palou, and others, had been seeking. In 1777 thLew
Mission Santa Clara de Asis was founded near the Guadelupe River at a place

The missions spaced at about a day\'s travel, formed a long chain from San
Diego to the Golden Gate. The trail connecting them was a continuation of the
Camino Real, or the quot;Royal Roadquot;, which extended from Guadalajara, Mexico,
to San Diego. For a time the Santa Clara Mission served as the only link and
stopover place between the settlement at Monterey and that on the San Fran-
cisco peninsula; later, the Mission San Juan Bautista was interpolated at a point
in the lower part of the San Benito Valley.

The development of the mission communities was determined by such
factors as past experiences in colonizing, the nature of the soil and climate, the
particular needs of the people, and the distance from a supply base. By its char-
acter as a frontier institution each mission had almosT entirely to depend on
Its own subsistence area. Communication with Mexico by ship was limited to a
few times a year, and even that was uncertain because of frequent disasters 2).
Regular food transportation was therefore too expensive and hazardous to be
rehed upon. Because of the headwinds, it took ships fifty to one hundred days
from Gil Bias, Mexico, to San Diego, California, and from San Diego to San
Francisco Bay it often took three weeks more.

Therefore, once the missions were founded and supplied with the primary
equipment, they were left to strive for self-sufficiency, the main condition on
which their preservation was based. Consequently, the Santa Clara Mission as
many others, suffered severe distress during the first years. It was successful
I nevertheless, in its main task — if the number of converted Indians at the mission
may be taken as a criterion. In 1786, nine years after its establishment the Santa
Clara Mission had 476 Indians 3); there were 1,291 in 1802 «); in 1826 the figure
was about the same but still the highest of all Californian missions «).

I he best method of civilizing the aborigines was held to be by rigid disci-
pline. Under supervision and control they were instructed in the various trades
which the community life demanded. Thus, the mission became a veritable
agricultural and industrial plant amidst the wilderness, teaching quot;the making

of bricks, tiles, pottery, the doing of carpenter and mason work, the making of
leather goods, melting tallow, manufacturing soap, shearing sheep, combing
and spinning wool, blacksmithing.quot; i)

The types of agriculture which the padres brought into the Santa Clara
Valley formed a typical Spanish assemblage: extensive stock ranging, grain
farming, and, on a small scale, the cultivation of fruits and garden crops under
irrigation. Not only were these easily adaptable to the unforested, subhumid
Santa Clara Valley, but they were the forms of agriculture which had been carried
on for generations in the similar chmate of Spain.

The conditions in the Santa Clara Valley were most favorable for the raising
of cattle. The country was open, with scattered oaks to offer shade, the grass
plentiful and sufficient for the entire year, the winters mild with\' no severe
cold, snow, or bhzzards to decimate the herds. The cattle multiplied rapidly
living almost wild in the abundant pasture. The Santa Clara Mission, as thé
other missions, began with eighteen head of homed stock. In 1783 the cattle
had increased to 400; in 1790 they numbered 2,817; and in 1810 there were
8,355 2). Duhaut Cilly 3) estimated the quot;neat cattlequot; of Santa Clara Mission
m 1827 to be quot;at least 12,000quot;. These increases indicate the surplus above the
large number of animals that were kiUed weekly for the community supply of
meat, hides, and tallow,.and later for export. Horses and small stock also
multiplied rapidly. In 1834 there were 1,200 horses, mules, and asses and
15,000 sheep, goats, and swinenbsp;^^

Wheat was the staple crop. Originally È^èy and oats were cultivated, but
when it was found that with the same labor superior grain varieties could be
obtained plentifully, the planting of oats and bariey, at least at Santa Clara, was
abandoned To some extent corn (maize) was planted, but the summer drj^ness
did not induce large scale production. The virgin soil gave abundant yields of
wheat, averaging seventy to eighty times the seed sown «). In later years the
yield dropped to forty\') and perhaps even twenty times the seed sown»). In
1790 the harvest was reported at 2,875 bushels, considered a low yield»); in
1824 the production was estimated at 3,000 fanegas, or 7,500 bushels\')-
in 1826 it was 4,000 fanegas, or 10,000 bushels, a crop that was con-
sidered just sufficient to feed the population of the mission 3). Most of these
figures are rough estimates, as is obvious by comparing them with those
on p. 40.

1) Z. Engelhardt, vol. II, 258.
quot;) H. H. Bancroft, vol. I, 477 ff.
Duhaut Cilly, 237.

*)nbsp;M. Duplot de Mofras, vol. I, 320—321. Quoted in Report on Agricultural Statistics

The significance of the mission for the later development of the Valley lies
in that it was the first positive modifying agent of the landscape — positive,
because it increased the regional value by adding stock and cultivated plants
to the natural resources. The secular settlement, coming soon after the mission,
did not add new elements in this respect, but it derives geographic importance
primely from the land system it created which, persisting in its boundaries, has
affected the road and land pattern to the present day.

Because communication with Mexico was difficult and expensive, the
government expected the missions not only to become self-sufficient, but also
to supply the garrisons at the presidios. It soon became evident, however, that
the Mission San Francisco de Asis could not give much assistance to the Golden
Gate Presidio. Her agricultural enterprises were severely limited by the unfavor-
able soil and foggy climate of the San Francisco Peninsula. It was then hoped
that the Mission Santa Clara would be able to furnish the necessary food supply,
but though its agricultural industry rated among the highest of California i), it
was not able to produce much above that needed for the ever increasing Indian
population 2). It seems that later, in the nineties, the Santa Clara Mission exported
certain commodities, mostly wheat, to the presidios. In 1795 \'it sold goods
for 15212 to San Francisco, and for $1,439 to Monterey; in 1796 its export
totaled $2,147 to Monterey and, in 1797, $1,643 to San Francisco s). But
on the whole, and particularly in the beginning, the Mission had nothing
to spare.

This uncertainty of aid for the presidios, and the impractibility of shipping
provisions from Mexico, made it imperative to create agricultural supply centers
in California «). Eleven months after the founding of Santa Clara the first of
these colonies, San Jose, was established in the bay district at a point three
kilometers southeast of the mission in the mesopotamian region between the
Guadelupe and Coyote Rivers. Since the only good site of the Valley in
respect to water, timber, and fertile soil, lay in this territory already chosen for
Santa Clara, it was found almost a necessity to locate the new Pueblo near the
Mission.

A number of advantages were offered to induce settlement. Each colonist
was supplied with a building lot {solare), a tract of tillable land {suerte) the
use of the common pasture and mountain resources of lumber and fuel {pjidos,
dehesas, and monies) and also with such necessities as small and large stock,

L. R. Boone, 143 ff. It is not clear from which source these figures were taken.

quot;) There exists a sketch map of the layout of the pueblo fields for the year 1782:
Archives of California, State Papers, -Missions and Colonization, I, 243. Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley.

implements, seeds, clothing, and, during the first years, a subsidy. In return
for this assistance he agreed to improve his land and to sell his surplus products
exclusively to the presidios at government prices. Since the Crown retained title
to the land, alienation of it in any way was forbidden i).

This comprehensive colonization plan was never fully realized. For years
the pueblo wavered between failure and a bare existence. In 1780 the population
was seventy, and the products totaled only seven hundred bushels grain, four
hundred seventeen head of large stock, and eight hundred sheep. As to the first
location of the Pueblo, the same mistake had been made as at Santa Clara; several
times it was inundated by the Guadelupe, and finally, about 1790, had to be
moved to higher grounds. Apparently several of the colonists had gone away, for
in 1790 the population had increased but ten in as many years 2).

In 1796 the Viceroy asked the missionaries to report why no greater progress
had been made at the PueMo San Jose, and what their opinion was regarding
further white settlement. Their answer doubtless was colored by an aversion
to their neighbors whose example was not the best for their Indian wards and
whose herds often trespassed upon mission lands. They reported that quot;after
twenty years there is indeed no material progress visible . . . The principal cause
is that the colonists of either town [the report referred also to the Pueblo Los
Angeles], if indeed the places deserve that name, find it more necessary to gamble
and to play the guitar than to teach their children and attend to their work. It is
the hired Indian that plows, sows, harvests, in a word, does nearly everything.quot;

In addition to this moralistic complaint the padres made it a point to attract
attention to the unsatisfactory i^rketing situation resulting from the strangling
trade policy of the government, and to hint for a change to free commerce.
quot;There is no storehouse,quot; they wrote, quot;whence to procure what he [the settler]
wants, save the government store . . . There he must pay the highest price for
goods, but is obliged to accept the lowest price for his grain. As he cannot sell
his produce anywhere else, he is discouraged and contents himself with raising
what is absolutely necessary . . . Hence, unless trade with others is encouraged,
the country can never prosper, as the missionaries fare just as poorly with thé
produce from the missionquot; 3).

It is unnecessary to follow in detail the fortunes of the pueblo It is enough
to note that about 1820 it slowly began to develop, probably as a result of the
beginning of commerce, and of the colonization policy inaugurated by the new
Mexican republic. By then its population had increased to 240, in 1831 it numbered
524, and m 1847 about 700. Its economic situation in 1831 as compared with
the neighboring missions is given in the following table taken from Forbes, who
lived in this region in the thirties

\') H. H. Bancroft, vol. I, 333—338; Laud titles in San Francisco, etc 112- 113

H. H. Bancroft, vol. 1, 477—479.
3) Quoted by Z. Engelliardt, vol. II, 513 -514.
*) See F. Hall, 112 ff.
«) A. Forbes, 259—260, 265.

Taken as a whole, the pueblo did not average below the Santa Clara and
San Jose missions in crop figures, and it exceeded San Juan Bautista. In the large
number of horses, the -poUadores showed their love for horsemanship, and in
the lack of sheep, their contempt for sheep raising as being an occupation
below their status — a little sidelight into the psychology of this group i).

During the Spanish regime, foreign commerce was forbidden by law and,
for reason of monopoly, limited to government agents. This ruling was of little
consequence during the pioneer years, for practically no ships visited the Cah-
fornia coast. With the Mexican Revolution, which began in 1810, authority
became lax in the northern frontier, and the supply ships no longer came.
Ilhcit trade, already developed before that time, became the only means of
commerce. When Mexico won its independence in the 1820\'s, it made this trade
legal under severe restrictions. Russian fur hunters, British and American whalers,
and especially Boston trading ships visited the ports of Monterey and San Fran-
cisco with growing frequency. The traders exchanged tea, coffee, spices, clothing,
leather goods, and all kinds of manufactures for tallow and hides. These hides
from California featured in the development of Massachusetts as a leading shoe
and boot-making region, fn 1831 nineteen ships entered Californian harbors 2).
Under the stimulus of this commerce, the settlements around the bay became
lively trade centers.

Originally the pueblo had been apportioned four square leagues east of the
Guadelupe3). Finding that this was insufficient as a common pasture for their
growing herds, the citizens from time to time secured additional lands. The
boundary between the pueblo and the Mission Santa Clara, after many years
of dispute, was in 1800 finally fixed at the Guadelupe River from its mouth till

3)nbsp;A Mexican league is 5000 varas or about 2.6 miles or 4.2 kilometers. The squart^
league is thus about 18 square kilometers.

Wheat (bu.)
Corn

Beans ,,
Barley ,,

Black cattle
Horses ....

Sheep .....

Mules......

about half a mile south of San Jose, and from there in a southerly direction to
the Santa Cruz Range. Thus, the Santa Clara lands lay west of the Guadelupe
and extended as far as the San Francisquito Creek, while the pueblo holdings
were east of the river reaching north to the lands of the Mission San Jose i) at
a line determined in 1806 as being from the mouth of the Guadelupe running
about east to the Mount Diablo Range. The pueblo lands, in addition to the
eastern half of the Bay Region, had been extended, by concession and customary
right, through the entire Central Section of the Santa Clara Valley as far south
as the Rancho las Anim.as, a private grant of 1802, beyond which lay the Southern
Basin claimed by the Mission San Juan Bautista 2).

To summarize the situation in the Santa Clara Valley about 1820: the
Northern Section was divided in half between the Mission Santa Clara and the
Pueblo San Jose; the Central Strip, save for one private holding, had come to
be considered as pueblo property; the Southern Basin was in possession of
the Mission San Juan Bautista.

Having overthrown the oppressive land system and the feudal rule of Spain,
the new Mexican republic tried to extend her liberal, anti-clerical policy to her
California territory by striving for the emancipation of the Indian from his
alleged servitude, and for an active settlement of the country 3). Since it was
believed necessary to break the grip of the missions before California could get
away from its frontier character, several measures were taken for their secular-
ization. However, the rapid succession of governments caused these rulings
either to be repudiated or to remain unenforced. Finally, in 1824, a law was made
for the colonization of vacant lands and in 1828 the general regulations formu-
lated for its execution. Under Jose Figuera, who became governor of CaHfornia
in 1832, the policy was put into effect through an active colonization program
which led to the establishment of large, private grants and, piece by piece, to
the complete annihilation o\'f the mission regime

As a part of this project, the larger portion of the Santa Clara Valley was
given out between 1833 and 1845 in individual holdings, twenty-two of which
were m the Bay Region, eight in the Central Section, and eight in the Southern
Section. Of these thirty-eight grants, seventeen were taken from the pueblo
territory, eight from that of the Mission San Juan Bautista, and thirteen from
the Santa Clara lands .

1)nbsp;The private holding. Los Tularcitos, granted in 1821 from the territory of Mission
San Jose, formed part of this northern boundary.

5) The dates of the grants are taken from Ogden Hoffman. District Judge. quot;Report
on Land Cases Determined in the United States District of California.quot; June term 1853
to June term 1858 inclusive. Volume I, Appendix. The data of this source are in some cases
divergent from what other documents seem to indicate. Bancroft (vol. II, 594) mentions
the rancho San Isidro as having been established between 1820 and 1830, while the claim-
ants before the United States District Court gave 1833 as the year of obtaining this grant
McQumty states that the Rancho Vicente was given as early as 1799, while in the Hoffman
Report 1842 is the date given by the claimants.

MAP
5HOWINa THE

5PANI5M-MEXICAN

LAND aRANT3

AS CONFIRMED BY THE
U.DISTRICT COURTS

Scale ± 1 :A2oooo

Bou^c/a/^iej ac/op6ed/pof^ 6/?e
(J t5, To/^ogrrop/jic /^cfpj.

KE.y.

Figuf^es tf^c/icah year»

itfM\'ch ia/^ds loepe gpcr/?/-ed

1834

1835

1836

1838

1839

1840

1841

1842

1844

1845

24,066
4,394
24,342
8,875
4,166
4,438
11,744
4,460
22,979
19,972
4,807
4,454
8,927
16,016
4,482
7,425
4,508

8,787
48.822
34,619
4,398

4.437
6,631
6,795

2,230
4,800
13,310
4,894
2,000
3,360

4.438
11,078

6,660
?

1,939
2,219
3,391
2,000
358
2.401

The granting of lands under the new pohcy was initiated in the pueblo
territory. From the chronological and geographical distribution of these grants
two conclusions seem warranted: first, that the lands farthest from the pueblo
were granted earliest, reserving as long as possible the common pastures near
the town; second, that the grantees preferred the combination of upland and
valley pastures to provide their stock with grazing lands and water at all seasons.
Maps V, VI and VII show clearly these tendencies. The ten grants given before 1836
he m the Central Section of the Santa Clara Valley and on the east border of
the Bay Region, nearly all possessing the desired combination of pastures. The
later colonists had less choice, except for those that secured the lands reserved
until then by the Pueblo. Of the seven ranchos granted after 1836, two had only
mountain pasture, two were situated entirely on the bottom lands, while three
south of the Pueblo occupied both hill and valley. Thus, the common lands
remaming to the Pueblo at the end of the Mexican regime consisted of the un-
granted portions of the Valley north and east of San Jose, and of some mountain
tracts scattered between the ranchos.

The grants from the mission territory illustrate practically the same tenden-
cies: to give distant lands first, and to make the ranchos a combination of valley
and uplands, with access to a water supply. They also reveal the struggle of the
missionaries to keep settlers away as far as possible, and the gradual conquest of
these mission lands by the settlers.

For a time the Mission San Juan Bautista succeeded in keeping free from
grants the region directly in her sphere of influence. Then in 1835 her lands were
secularized and divided into eight large ranchos, leaving her only a narrow
strip in the San Benito Valley. The four ranchos severed from the mission lands
before 1837 bordered the northern and eastern Bolsa rim; the later ones were
either in the mountain? ^ crowded close upon the mission. The natural topog-
raphy of the valley aifofded lowland and hillside pasture to all the ranchos
except the two latest, of which one occupied the undesirable alkali flat in the
center of the basin, and the other the low hills of Lomerias Muertas.

The older and stronger Santa Clara Mission tried desperately to protect
the work of sixty years, but was successful only in postponing the secularization
of her lands until 1839. Then civic settlement began rapidly. Within six years
the larger part of her territory was converted into thirteen private holdings. The
grants given between 1839 and 1843 were, with one exception, at a distance
from the mission, two of them in the Santa Cruz Range, three on the valley edge
and foothills, and one in the extreme northwest of the bay plain. Next, lands
nearby were subtracted from the mission holdings. Of these later grants, all but
one were in the valley, closing about the mission and leaving it but an irregular
territory to the west and to the north as far as the bay. In 1845 the mission
orchards were claimed for payment of debts and sold for 7,200 pesos.

The padres, seeing the destruction of what had been wrought with so much
zeal and faith, began to neglect the cultivation of the fields, and ordered the
killing of the large herds to prevent them falling into.other hands. The utter
breakdown of the economic life of the missions is clear from the following figures

given at dates before the secularization came into effect, and when-the mission
system was near its death:

The complicated formalities necessary to make valid the land grants were
seldom completed. Indeed, little trouble was taken other than to establish the
general outlines of properties, for the abundant land was used only for ranging.
The size and position of the tracts in reference to the natural topography, or to
other holdings, were determined by a rude map or plan, or merely by a written
description The grant^oundaries were defined largely by natural objects such
as creek beds, ridges, the marshes of the bay, or by such markers as outstanding
trees and rock points 3). Time and again in reading descriptions of the old grants
one finds sentences similar to this: quot;from the last sycamore on the river... varas
in the direction of a live oak in the mountains which is clearly visible from this
point; then eastward . . . varas to a live oak about ... in diameter, standing
on the summit of a rocky chemisal point...quot; Most of the grants were actually
given in terms of so many leagues quot;more or lessquot;. The term quot;Grenzsaumquot;, as
used for demarcation zones in medieval Europe, might well be applied here.
These indefinite boundaries, though sufficient for the Spanish-Mexican pastoral
society, were hardly suitable for an agricultural community. Therefore, when
American farmers settled California, serious difficulties were bound to arise over
the land question, making inevitable a clash between the two distinct social-
economic structures.

In a certain sense it may be said that about 1845 the Mexican colonization
policy had been completed in the Santa Clara Valley. In accordance with the
plan to make California an organic part of the republic, the missions had been
secularized, and nearly all the desirable lands given out as private holdings.
Nevertheless,-from a social-economic standpoint, California was still a borderland.

3) The maps VI and VII, though surveys of later date, are very illustrative in
this respect.

Its dominant industry was cattle ranging, and its trade little else than the export
of h.des and tallow and the import of manufactured articles and f neTffod ZL

Spamards to push a modification of the encomienda system intoT g^ si Jd
1 un^il^ed The ? \'nbsp;population I™

fnT f^: f developed agricultural regions of Mexico proper Thus Cali-
fornia at the close of the Mexican regime was only a feeble outpost o the Ladn

The present city of Santa Clara is not located on the original mission site.\'
The Guadelupe lowlands, where the padres built to be near abundant water,
proved subject to winter overflow. After suffering several inundations, the mission
was in 1779 moved to another location. But again, the padres in their desire to
be near water, chose a situation on the unfavorable bottomlands. Captain
Vancouver, who visited the Bay Region in 1792, writes: quot;The particular spot
which has been selected by the reverend fathers for their establishment did not
appear so suitable to their purpose as many other parts of the plain within a
little distance of their present buildings, which are erected in a low marshy
situation for the sake of being near a run of fine water, notwithstanding that
within a few hundred yards they might have built their houses on dry and com-
fortable eminencesquot; i). Later the mission was indeed moved to these higher
lands about six hundred meters to the southwest, a place now occupied by the
Santa Clara University. The soil and topographic maps 2) of the district clearly
show that the first two sites were situated on heavy, black adobe soils character-
istic for areas with stagnant drainage conditions, and at elevations of about
eighteen and twenty-four meters above sea level. The final location lies one and
a half kilometers from the river, at about thirty meters in elevation, on a clay

loam area which the soil map strikingly reveals as protruding like a peninsula
into the adobe plain.

It has been seen that discipline was the essence of the Spanish mission;
the whole physical arrangement of the settlement was an outward expression
of this fact. To civilize and convert the Indians it was found necessary to gather
them under rigid control. At the Mission Santa Clara, after an unsatisfactory
experiment of letting them raise cabins after their own fashion, the Indians
were mstalled m five rows of adobe houses 3). The buildings of the mission proper
stood around a patio typical for Mediterranean architectural tradition; about this
central square were the church, houses for the missionaries and the military
guard, a warehouse, granaries, storehouses, and later, rooms for several trades.

») L. C Holmes, etc. soil map San Jose Quadrangle; U. S. Topographic Map
3) G. Vancouver, vol: II, 20; F. W. Beechey. vol. II. 35 ff.

At first these buildings were stockaded structures, composed of redwood nr
pme posts driven close together, plastered inside and ouTwrth clly heavilv

tule ). Af er a time, buildmgs were made of thick adobe walls with tile roofs
ot the second Santa Clara site, dedicated in 17S4. It Was built of adobe ^ with a

f om the Guadelupe. In 1795 an irrigation ditch was constructed nearly Ihree
kilometers long, three meters wide, and one and a half meters deep, leading fmrn
the^nver to the mission, following the west side of the garden, and then bendTng
back to the Guadelupe The crops of this garden were Irench and kidney beans

pears, apncots, peaches, figs, and olives \'). It may be remarked that prunes ^re „

promote uniform drying and to reduce warping in the heavy textured soils. ^
quot;j H. H. Bancroft, vol. I, 474.
R. Newcomb, 296.
R. Newcomb, 296; F. Hall 80

the \'Americans showed a decided adversity to these heavy soils. (See p. 77),
Either the padres knew how to cultivate these fertile but difficult lands, or,
ignorant of the value of the loamy soils south of the mission, they had to be
satisfied with what the adobe yielded.

If one makes an estimate of the mission agriculture at its prime, it becomes
clear that the total tilled acreage was but a very small part of the entire domain.
To translate the crop figures given on p. 37 into geographic values, the yield
per square unit should be known, but lacking this, only a very rough estimate
can be made. Taking into account the fertility of the soil, and, on the other
hand, the wasteful harvesting methods, thirty bushels to an acre seems a probable
average i). At this yield, the land in grain in 1790 would have been scarcely
one hundred acres; in 1824 it may have been about two hundred and fifty acres,
and in 1826 three hundred thirty acres. Even at a lower yield, say twenty bushels,
the total grain lands would not- have exceeded five hundred acres, obviously
a very small portion of the mission holdings.

The Pueblo San Jose, like the Mission, made the mistake of locating
on the water-logged bottomlands of the Guadelupe, and was therefore, in 1790,
forced to move to a higher place, a clay loam area about thirty meters in elevation!
It is known that the original settlement was built around a plaza as the quot;law
of the Indiesquot; prescribed for the layout of pueblos 2); very likely the buildings
of the second site were constructed on the same plan.

The Pueblo of the early nineteenth century is described as an assemblage
of one-story, adobe houses built about a central square and surrounded by
quot;tolerably well kept gardensquot; irrigated by acequias (ditches) that diverted water
from the Guadelupe River 3). House walls were sometimes built of vertical timbers
covered with plaster, but usually of sun- dried brick material, which was more
easily secured than the timber. The roofs were made of tile, though frequently
^ of tule or rods pldced on the rafters and covered with mud and straw. The better
houses had whitewashed walls, a portico on one or both sides, and wooden doors
instead of the hides which served for poorer huts.

Not until 1803 was a chapel erected in the pueblo, an adobe structure covered
with a tule thatched roof. Before that time the pobladores had to keep the Sab-
bath by walking the three kilometers to the mission, a dismal journey in winter
when the Alameda, a road built in 1799 joining the settlements, was scarcely
better than the surrounding marsh. Still, this road for long was the best in the
country, the Camino Real being nothing more than a frequented trail connecting

An American observer in 1849 (Tyson) estimated that quot;to the best information 35 to
40 bushels can be readily raised to the acre in the present rude way of farming and without
manurequot;, Report II, part 1, 59. Other visitors commonly mention smaller yields
2) F. Palou. vol. IV, 167—168.

=gt;) O. V. Kotzebue.T. II. 54; F. W. Beechey, vol. II, 320; A. Robinson, 72; E Bryant
315—316; Duhaut Cilly, 237—238; F. Hall. 90 ff.

m 1792 did not en^unter any settlement on his way from the Mission San Fran-
cisco to Santa Clara; Beechey thirty-four years later mentions only one in that
region. Some members of his party on the way to Monterey also found one near
the present Gilroy, probably the Las Animas Rancho After 1832 however
under the Mexican colonization policy, the ranchos became more and moré \'
numerous until in 1845 there were a total of forty (see table p. 43) quot;estancias
de ganadoquot; scattered over the Valley.

on the grant where he stayed whenever his presence was necessary «). The buildings
of the rancho were located by a spring or stream, and formed a veritable hamlet
I he owner s house was usually a one story, adobe structure, roofed with red tile
and often fronted by a piazza supported by columns Nearby were the huts of
tne peons and a number of corrals constructed of sturdy timbers sunk in the
ground. The bare yard of this settlement was indented with the feet of cattle
strewn with bones and horns, and inhabited by ducks, dogs, and chickens. Heré
and there were usually one or two clumsy oxcarts, a beehive, and a stone oven
loward the end of the Mexican period a few of the ranchos had horse-drawn
.h the quot;haciendaquot; of the socially prominent, one found a specll

;) This road existed at least in the forties; See E. Bryant. 259 (Dutch Edition)
G. Vancouver, vol. II, 16; F. W. Beechey, vol. II, 38, 46 ff.nbsp;^

Santl^Iara\'^V^/\'\'\'\'\';nbsp;quot;quot; ^^-^quot;Ptioquot; «f an estancia in the northwest of the

banta Clara Valley closely agrees with the picture of the rancho opposite thi. \' quot;

which latter establishment lay at the foot of tL Santa Cruz Range south^of sl wTe

picture IS a reconstruction of the old rancho by a descendants of the Spanish MexiTnoro

pnetor and was published in the San Jose Mercury-Herald of June 28nbsp;P^quot;quot;

The dominant place which the cattle industry achieved in this region was
a natural adaptation to frontier conditions where labor skilled in agriculture
was scarce, where grass was plentiful and land cheap, and where the opening
of commerce created a market for hides and tallow. Managing wild cattle on the
open range could only be done with mounted men. For efficiency in handling
the large herds of wild, homed cattle, the rancheros found the horse a vital asset.
In fact, man and horse became practically an action unit. An American visitor
observed in 1849 that the native Californians quot;seem unwilling to do any kind
of work unless it can be done in this equestrian fashionquot; i). Skilled horsemanship
became one of the outstanding features of this civilization, which might be
called the Mexican-Californian cattle kingdom, 2) _ or, with more appreciation
for the centauric character of the Hispanic Californian, the Era of the Horse
Culture.

The rodeo, as the round up and branding of cattle was called, climaxed the
rancho activities. It was the necessary method by which the mixed cattle of the
open lands could be separated and individual claims ascertained. As Webb
tersely expresses it: quot;The round-up was to cattle what the harvest is to wheat — a
gathering of the products of the [plains] grass. Branding, which accompanied
the round-up, was merely the expression of ownership in about the only way it
could have been expressed.quot;

When a trading ship arrived in the San Francisco Bay, oxcart loads of
hides and tallow were driven from the ranchos and missions to the edge of the
mainland. There they were met by small sloops that had come through the
marsh belt by following the winding sloughs. There were several of these primitive
shipping points, or embarcaderos, on the bay shores On the Guadelupe was one
for the mission and pueblo, and on the east shore opposite the Mission San Jose
was another. A third was built at the mouth of San Francisquito Creek by the
proprietor of the adjacent rancho. During the last years of the Mexican reign
another landing was made by an American at a slough east of Stevens Creek\'
approximately at the location of the present South Shore Harbor Neither
habitations nor warehouses existed at these transfer points in pre-American days;
the irregular and relatively small amount of trade did not induce settlement here!

The narratives of several visitors who came to this frontier country during
the first half of the nineteenth century comment on the remarkable lack of
progressive measures in agriculture. Vancouver, who visited the Santa Clara

them, ihe Sp^nil-uZLTs t^^, .and Forbes, about 1840, can only repeat
come from a count TbSa ^ n tnbsp;,\'^quot;°»quot;edge of farming _ haLg

missionaries were satisM tl sTellrlrd: quot;
shunning idleness.quot; What his b ntM oTthe mif\'quot;quot;®
applied to the pueblo and the rlncro The „ .

y uii Uie corral IJoor and running horses over it DnrJnr^
Spanish occupation the ^rinrlino-nfnbsp;^ ^^ver u during the entire

z. Engelhardt, vol. II, 260.
F. W. Beechey, vol. II, 38.
A. Forbes, 247 ff.
*) Duhaut-Cilly, 237.

so abundant, began their role in California asgrainfield weeds i). Many other weeds |
of European origin date also from Spanish times, but in comparison with wild\'
oats and mustard they were of slight importance as landscape transforming agents..
Though a number of typical European weeds were found in the adobe bricks,
surprisingly enough, only one kernel of wild oat was discovered, and that a
dubious one, in a brick from the church of the Mission San Juan Bautista which
was built between 1805 and 1813. From this fact it appears that the weed began
to spread over the country only after the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Early travelers, such as Vancouver, von Kotzebue, and Beechey, never mention
wild mustard and oats, but later visitors were struck by their luxurious growth.
Colonel Fremont, who camped in the Central Section of the Santa Clara Valley
in 1846, described the Mount Hamilton Range as being quot;covered with wild oatsquot; 2).
Bryant tells about encountering abundant mustard vegetation on the way from
San Jose to San Francisco. It is said that in 1850 wild mustard had become such
a pest that San Jose was surrounded by a thick and high growth, some of which
attained the height of fourteen feet 3). The astonishing rapidity with which these
weeds spread over a wide territory may perhaps be somewhat accounted for by
the partial extermination of the indigenous, perennial grasses through overgrazing.

As a borderland, the Santa Clara Valley necessarily was a closed economic
region, almost isolated from the world — self sufficient. Moreover, each occupance
unit within the valley had to rely on its own products and manufactures, forquot;
division of labor and trade were yet in their beginnings (Geschlossene Haus-
wirtschaft). Agriculture was for local need, with some export to presidios and
occasional supplies for ships. The cultivated fields were almost negligible
in size when compared with the immense, oak-dotted, natural pastures, extending
over the valley and far into the mountains — a clear areal reflection of the
production process that characterized the time. Toward the end of the period
the perennial grasses were partly succeeded by the wild oats and other European
plants incidentally introduced.

Scattered over the valley were the rancho establishments, each on its vast
land holding. The two settlement centers lay in the lowlands of the Guadelupe
and Coyote: San Jose, the focal point for social and administrative interests,
yet very limited in economic functions because of the absence of trade; and Santa
Clara, originally the religious and cultural center, but, since the initiation of the
Mexican colonization policy, a decaying institution.

The land system associated with the secular settlement of the Spanish-
Mexicans was in harmony with the pastoral economy of the time, but by its
persistence through the American era, it had significant bearing on the subsequent
development of the region.

1)nbsp;G. W. Hendry and M. Kelley. Another study on the content of adobe bricks by
Prof. Hendry was kindly given for reading in manuscript.

the chief objectives for advancing to newZT\'quot;\' \'T quot;quot;quot;quot; ^^^^ of

merely as a strategic measure and make hr^/™quot; ^\' quot;quot;quot;Py California

older the gold rush acquired moTntr th\'\' \'nbsp;^
numbering perhaps 15^00 .),~7wiS: \'\'T

Califo^ia to a,.re ne^
three-quarters of a century had creaM ^nnbsp;® ^he occupation

simphhed. though far from solved L f^^ mquot;quot;quot;\'\'\'™quot;™\'quot;\'»\'erially
in population.nbsp;problem for the enormous growth

the belief, during the fquot;st ; art thaTrsor^\'thquot;quot;quot;\'quot;^- \'quot;^ether w «

For years the main item in the balance of trade was the export of gold. This
vast stream of quot;wealthquot;, which flowed to other states and countries, easily grasped
the imagination of the common mind. As a result, there was wide experimentation
with all kinds of crops in an effort to replace foreign goods by native products i).

Scarcity of labor also characterized the period, seriously checking the develop-
ment of industry, bringing failure to certain hopefully initiated crops, and
hindering the expansion of others. Here, as in other new countries, this shortage
hastened the adoption or invention of labor-saving devices, a measure which/ /
was facilitated by the level topography of the land.nbsp;\'

From the outset of the American occupation, the need was felt for a quicker
means of linking up with the eastern states 2). When production began to increase,
the limited home market and relatively isolated position made Californians
desire, more than ever, the building of a railroad in order to open the populous
eastern states to their products. Besides, immigration, which was expected to
solve the labor problem, was seriously hampered by the long and hazardous
journey by land or sea.

expression of the change which was taking place from a self-sufficient, pastoral

society to one oi specialized production, associated with a well marked division
of labor.

possibilities and charm of the Pacific region 3). The first non-Spanish settlers

Santa Clara Valley for a longer or shorter time. In 1840 parties of farmers began

to arrive, a branch of the flow that followed the Oregon trail to the Pacific .
Northwest.

The newcomers conformed to the production pattern then prevalent in the
valley, that of cattle raising, with a limited cultivation of crops for home use
Coming from the east where they were accustomed to small sized farms and to
the conditions of a humid climate, they now were compelled to adjust themselves
to an entirely different agricultural economy. While in the east the unimproved

1865 364 ff, 375 ff. Hereafter this source will be quoted as quot;Transactionsquot;
Report VIII, (F. Smith) 1850, 94—95.

pasture lot was of secondary significance to the cropland, here, in Mexican
Lalilomia, the cropland was merely auxiliary to the range. Some of the would-be
settlers purchased lands; others acquired them by securing Mexican citizenship
and turnmg Catholic, or by marrying the daughters of grant owners. Agricultural
conditions did not change by the fact that California became annexed to the
Umted States. Since the United States government had guaranteed the recogni-
tion of private properties, the character of the ranch system seemed likely to
continue without disturbance, or at least to transform but gradually.

This state of affairs was abruptly changed by the news of gold discovery
Everybody who could, and a goodly number who could or should not, hurried
to the diggings, leaving the coast communities practically deserted. Through the
Santa Clara Valley passed a constant stream of Califomians, new and old coming
up with the first rumors to the placers. They were months ahead of those from
the east. Then fortune hunters by the thousands began to pour into San Fran-
cisco from the eastern states, as well as from all parts of the world. Those who
could not pay the passage on the Sacramento and San Joaquin River steamers
traversed the Santa Clara Valley. For them the way led via San Jose over the
Diablo Range, and so to the San Joaquin Valley. This comparatively easy trail
over the Mission Pass, just north of the Mission San Jose, probably became the
first wheel route over the mountains.

satisfying the needs of the prospective miners. Their chances for obtaining gold

wages in the spring of 1850 being from ten to fifteen dollars a day. Horses, which

had been worth five to ten dollars, now sold from sixty to one hundred and fifty

about two dollars per head for hide and tallow, now was valued for beef at twenty

there were more than three hundred sea-going vessels in the port of San
Francisco

It soon became evident that gold seeking was not everyone\'s business. With
so attractive an opportunity for making large profits outside the mines, a good
many who had been disappointed at the diggings settled in the Santa Clara
Valley and took to trade, agriculture, and industry. Land that had been abandoned
in the first frenzy for gold rose again to importance. Former residents returned

to their properties, and people from the east who had given up their farms for the

gold hunt became farmers anew in the west. It was then that the land question
became acute.

Many immigrants believed that the territory ceded by Mexico was at the
time of its cession public property, and as such-had become public domain of the
United States^). Yet, when they tried to claim land they found that the best
had been divided into large grants. They felt themselves duped, and in line with
the self-assertive behavior of those days, they took the quot;rightquot; into their own
hands, simply occupying the land and threatening death to anyone who inter-
fered 2). The squatters held sway especially in the Bay Section. quot;Though ostensibly
left without countenance by the law, they were often engaged in an offensive
and defensive alliance with the officers of the government. The squatters . . .
drove away the owner\'s cattle, cut down his trees, paid no taxesquot; They far
outnumbered the grantholders and forced them by voting, or by sheer power,
to pay the taxes which were assessed at exhorbitant rates. Often the owner was
unable to pay the tax on his immense holding and had to. sell his lands or to
submit to amortagageat such a high rate of interest that frequently foreclosure
followed. The newcomers also attacked the legality of ownership, and, as the
formalities of Mexican law necessary to make land titles valid had not always
been completed, the position of many a grant holder became indeed precarious.

As a means of bringing order to the chaotic situation, the United States
government ruled in 1852 that claims on lands granted by the former regime
had to be filed in court to establish the ownership. The strifes that developed
around these law suits, and the slow and often unsatisfactory way of settling the
cases cannot be dealt with here, though one matter, the shift in land ownership,
deserves attention.

From the reports on the land cases it appears that as final outcome only
twenty-three of the original forty grants in the Santa Clara Valley were legally
claimed by and confirmed to Spanish Mexicans. It is evident that the Mexican
proprietors\' class was rapidly being displaced. The relation between the total
acreage in grants (I), and the portion finally confirmed to Mexicans (II) is appar-
ent from the following figures:

2) H. H. Bancroft, vol. 35, 402 ff.
®) J. S. Hittell, 459.
1) See note 5, p. 41.

The table shows that the Southern Section was, in the early fifties, still
dominantly in the hands of the old proprietors, but that most of the Central
Section had been acquired by Americans. In the Northern Section the situation
was much gloomier for the Mexican proprietors than the figures indicate, for
here the squatters had settled in large numbers. Thus, a man might own the
land in name but actually be without. Even if the final court decision had been
in his favor, the grantholder often could not enforce his rights. The ejection of
the squatters, who defended themselves by arms, if necessary, and often had the
popular opinion at their side, was under legal process a difficult, costly, or even
impossible job i). Many of the Mexican rancheros found the economic, legal,
and financial difficulties which they had to face unsurmountable. It may be said
that in twenty years or less all the large Mexican estates had disappeared. Only
the boundaries of the grants, as now defined by the United States surveys,
remained as survivals of the former system and, as such, had their influence on
the future lay-out of the land (see maps VI, VII and VIII).

The Santa Clara Valley since 1850 has passed through the following three
agricultural phases: first, fifteen years characterized by cattle ranging, extensive
wheat cultivation, and an all around experimenting with crops; second, a period,
beginning about 1865, in which wheat farming dominated over cattle raising,
soil culture began to replace quot;soil miningquot; and in which the foundations were
laid for specialization in horticulture; third, from 1875 to the present, a time
wherein horticulture superseded the declining wheat culture, and many other
forms of intensive land utilization were developed under the increasing use of
irrigation. The first two periods will be outlined in this part of the study and the
third in the last part.

In goldrush days the only foodstuff that could be supplied in quantities by the
country was beef. Nevertheless, the demand was so great that it became necessary
to bring in big quot;drivesquot; of cattle and sheep from Texas, New Mexico, and even
from states east of the Mississippi 2). Since most of this import was meant as
a meat supply for the immigrants, it had little or no influence upon the quality
of the Californian stock. For years to come, the Spanish cattle — wild, lean,
and yielding little milk — were the prevalent type.

Many settlers, in addition to the old timers, engaged in stock raising, following
the Mexican range methods. Grazing lands were ample, as there were at first
no fences except in those parts of the valley where farmers had protected their
fields. Among the many newcomers attracted by the opportunity for money-
making were a few who, by their shrewd sense for big business, succeeded in
building up veritable range domains in comparison with which the Mexican

ranchos were trifles. Though these cattle barons operated especially on the public
domain in the Great Valley of California, they also laid hands, where possible,
on the land grants in the Coast Range valleys. Thus, a certain firm which had
accumulated immense holdings in the San Joaquin Valley acquired a number
of grants in the Santa Clara Valley, especially in the Southern Section where
farming did not develop in the first fifteen years of the American occupation.

With the expansion of farm enclosures and the proportional shrinkage in
open pasture lands, there resulted an overcrowding of the range. Yet in spite of
thisi_ej^nsiye cattle ranging in all probability would have continued longer its
dominance over large portions of the valley had not the severe drought of 1864
come, seriously crippling the industry The census of 1860 gives the number
of cattle in Santa Clara County as 35,648, milk cows excepted. In 1870 this
figure had fallen to 14,569. The disaster forcibly convinced the cattlemen of the
necessity for more efficient methods. As this chapter deals only with the factors
that brought about the changes in land utihzation, it is sufficient to note here
that toward the end of the period the stock ranch gave place to the stock farm,
a move from extensive to intensive management of this, the oldest industry of the
vaUey.

Measures for improvement in the stock industry were all the more imperative
because the farmer won the final victory over the rancher regarding the fence
question.

In the early days of the American period, the law required the cultivators
of the soil quot;to enclose their lands with good and substantial fences, or otherwise )
submit to the depredation^ of the stock, without any legal addressquot; 2). No fact
could better demonstrate the supremacy of range over field than this measure.
It laid a heavy burden on the farmer, and freed the rancher of practically all
responsibility for damage done by his stock. The price of a quot;lawful fencequot; was
more than many farmers could easily afford; even in the Santa Clara Valley
where redwood forests were nearby, the expenditure was between three to six
hundred dollars a mile

It was not long before the farmers began to attack this system. The trend
of their argument was that the stock raising business was profitable only because
the expense of fencing was borne by the farmer^). It was estimated that the total
investment in fencing was much higher than the value of all stock on the range

\') J. S. Hittell, 165. The quot;Report of the Commissioner for Agriculture for the
year 1871quot; contains quot;Statistics of Fences in the U.S.quot; (497—512) with very interesting
material on this matter. The average cost per rod for post and fences in California is given
as $1.59 per rod; of board fences .$1.30 a rod. This would mean about S900 to enclose a
farm of a quarter section (160 acres).

for him to develop high bred stock within enclosures. In this relation^r
t.on ofJ^A^re in 1873 was a fact of wide importan e irquot;t the
somenbsp;the quot;barbarous fencequot;, but this^as soo„\\t iot ^T

economy and advantage over the wooden fence were realized is „07^ quot;
exactly when barbed wire was introduced into the Santa Clan, vll.r ^ T
it very likely was in the late seventies Its urfaciHtaLd th h
I jands into tracts, reserving grazing areas

such as Ohio, and Missouri, as well as from Australia =). Experience with /h
herds showed that the California climate, especially because of t?m H ^

Its yield was small and of coarse and uneven quality therefore Spanish
French merino rams were imported from Vermlt and New Yo^k

) While this study was being written, the book of W. P. Webb quot;The Cre.. • ..
appeared,which contains an exr^li^nfnbsp;..t ^nbsp;vveoo, ihe Great Plainsquot;,

of sheep in Santa Clara County was 49,085, by 1880 it had dropped to 19,837 and
continued to dechne to only 2,819 in 1890, and 2,344 in 1930.

Though the agricultural economy of the valley had from the start a strong
tendency toward specialization, most farmers kept at least a few milch cows for
home use. Besides this measure of farm self — sufficiency, there soon grew up a
dairy industry proper. The large proprietor who had lands with good grass
throughout the year often engaged in dairying, using extensive methods very
similar to those of the stock ranch; he imported herds of better breed and divided
his wide holdings into several tracts, on each of which he built accommodations
for the milkers and buttermaker. Later, to save himself trouble, he leased the
individual tracts to several tenants who payed him a cash rent for each cow,
furnished their own help and equipment, and agreed to raise a certain number
of calves 1). This system of dairy tenantry, as it still exists in parts of the Valley,
enabled people without capital — many of them Swiss dairy men — to accumulate
money with which to establish enterprises of their own Because of the transpor-
tation difficulties, milk was sold only to nearby towns and local customers.
Butter and cheese were the main products, and were exported to the growing
urban centers and mining districts. After completion of the overland railroad,
however, the eastern states began to ship in these products. Consequently, prices
fell, and for a number of years interest in dairying declined in the valley

The staple crop of the agricultural renaissance after the gold rush became
wheat. A ready market was certain. Furthermore, wheat was a crop easily handled,
an important factor because of the scarcity of labor. Its cultivation did not
require special skill or an expensive layout, and gave quick returns.

Many engaged in grain farming with the same attitude as they had had
towards mining. As they did not intend to stay, or expected to be ejected from
the land at any time, they gave no care whatsoever to the soil. The ease with
v^ch the soil could be tilled facilitated this type of farming. These semi-arid
lands where the lime had not been washed from the soils, and which, for the
greater part, were still in virgin state, proved to be far more fertile than those
in the humid east. The broad alluvial valley floor, with its open stand of
oaks, required no clearing; nor was there a heavy grass sod to break as in
the prairie sections. Attachment to the soil did not develop here as in regions
where much toil was involved in clearing fields.

The easy cultivation and high fertility of the soil account for the astonishing
expansion of the California wheat supply. In 1850 it was expected that for many

years to come wheat would be needed from the eastern states i). In 1853, California
still received a large import, but two years later there had already grown to be
surplus and the first notable shipment of wheat to New York took place 3).
As gold was practically the only export, ships to California made no calculations
on return cargoes, estimating their profits on the outward freights Thus, the
rates for shipping grain were not high. Coupled with this small transportation
charge was a low production cost, for wheat lands were cheap or free, and often,
without special care, gave a second and a third crop from the same sowing!
Moreover, California wheat became noted for its whiteness, and for its dryness
which prevented rotting and fermenting during the long ocean-^oyagesT even
I through the tropics. The Santa Clara Valley ranked most favorably with\'other
parts of California in the quality of its grains s).

In the sixties the eastern market was especially profitable because of the
C^War. Later, about 1870, most of the wheat export went to England, and
much flour to China, Japan, and other Pacific countries «). In Santa Clara County
the wheat production in 1856 was about 180,000 bushels; in 1859 it had tripled to
549,195 bushels; and in 1869 it had risen to 1,188,137 bushels\'). In 1874 the
. peak of the industry was reached with 1,701,132 bushels«), after which set in a
rapid decline The state as a whole, however, attained its top mark in 1878
with about forty million bushels, maintaining this high level as late as 18961quot;).
^ To a large extent the cultivation of barley shared the fortune of wheat
Since the climate had proved usually to be too dry for the full maturing of oats
barley had become the general fodder crop and was extensively used to supply
pack trains to the minesquot;). Because of its thin-skinned, bright, plump and mellow
kernels, California bariey became, and still is, renown for its malting qualitiesi^).

The yield was on the average much higher than that of wheat, being estimated
for the years 1853—1859 at 28.4 bushels per acre, while wheat for this period
had an average of 19.6 bushels^s). Though the valley\'s production continued to
rise even after wheat was on the decline, it too decreased long before the state
as a whole, one more indication of how agricultural successions in the Santa
Clara Valley were ahead of those in other parts of California.

The following table gives a review of grain production in Santa Clara County i^):

») Compare graphs I and II, pp. 103 and 104.
quot;) E. W. Braun I, 6.
quot;) H. D. Dunn in: Transactions 1867, 515.

figures which may be used since practically all the cultivated area of the County
hes in the Valley. The Hollister Basin, which is in San Benito County, is not here

The scarcity of labor and the large size of the farms very eariy encouraged
the use of machinery in the Santa Clara Valley, as elsewhere m California. The
open level valley floor and the superficial preparation of the soil made this
region peculiarly inviting to the employment of big machinery. Since the impor-
tation of heavy implements was very expensive in pre-railroad days, a number
of inventions appeared in California, either as home products or as tryouts of
devices patented in the East. Reports on the early state fairs mention all kinds
of new farm machinery An inhabitant of the Santa Clara Valley was lauded
at the Fair of 1857 for having invented quot;the best reaper of any country. With
two horses and two men, it reaps 25 acres in a dayquot;. A San Jose firm exhibited

In the late forties there had been invented in the Middle West a reaper which
became known as the quot;headerquot; because, pushed by several horses, it cuts only
the heads of the grain, thereby eliminating the binding The machine was not
well suited to a humid climate, as the grain had to be sufficiently dry at the
time of the harvest to be stacked directly when cut. Obviously only in a subhumid
climate, such as California, could the header be successfully employed, and here
it became quite popular; in the seventies it was in general use in the Santa Clara
Valley. (See picture 8 with header at work). In the late eighties the combined
harvester-thresher was adopted on the vast wheat farms of California®). It is
not known if the quot;combinequot; was ever used to any extent in the Santa Clara
Valley; it seems unlikely, as wheat cultivation about 1880 was here already on

See e.g. Transactions 1860, 233.
Transactions 1858, 64.
Transactions 1860, 233.
L. Rogin, 103 ff.
L, Rogin, 120—123.

each minute of time! The whole wor d h»V» * ® quot; One sack in
that this first harvester-ttoerbled ?nbsp;quot;\'\'\'quot; ^^ems

with silver - not an inappropriate fdornm^tTolh®quot;\'\',
and best possible machiLry wHhrZt 11 f \'\'
the „„.„passed flour that gL vMons^ofalro rb^^^^^
the erection of this structure can be tak^n .. T.nbsp;®

raising of valuable crops. At the same time f h Pquot;, Products, stimulated the

intent on quick gains, turned their attention to the raising of berries and vege-
tables for San Francisco and the mining districts Very likely use was made
of the seeds and cuttings available from the Californian gardens of pre-goldrush
days. Of the grape vine this is certain (see p. 68), though of other products not
more than an assumption. In addition to these were the seeds and cuttings which
the American immigrants brought with them from the east. A farmer in \'48 came
from Iowa with a wagonload of choice grafted apples and other fruit trees, two
of each variety, planted upright in a wagon box of soil which he kept moist all
the way As soon as people settled down to farming, after the first gold frenzy
was over, they wrote to friends and relatives quot;back eastquot; to send them seeds,
cuttings, and bulbs. Trees were also imported from Massachusetts and set out
in nurseries.

High prices created a boom in horticulture. Naturally, there was much
experimenting; every kind of fruit was given a chance. Around San Jose, many
orchards had scores of varieties, each represented by a couple of trees In 1853
a State Horticultural Society was formed at San Jose, and when it held its first
fair in 1856, people came hundreds of miles to see it In 1857, some eight years
after the gold rush, there were in Santa Clara County 35,000 apple trees, 25,000
peach, 6,000 pear, 1,300 cherry, and 5,600 trees of other varieties Sooner than
one would have expected, the early rush of fruit planting led to overproduction.
California was limited by its isolated position to a trade with its own cities and
with the mining districts, to which in the sixties was added the Nevada territory ®).
The more perishable the fruit, the more restricted was the market; thus, apples,
which could be stored and shipped with the least loss, were first far in the lead
of production. Already in 1857 it was stated that the widespread cultivation of
choice fruits threatened a flooding of the market\'). The yearly increase of fruit
plantings naturally excited anxiety as how to find an outlet for the inevitable
surplus. As governor Stanford put it in 1862: quot;California will have in five years
more orchard production than any other state or country in the world and it
will be a question with the farmer what to do with them.quot;

Theoretically, the way was easily indicated: quot;There is no reason why we
cannot supply ourselves with the thousands of barrels, boxes, hogsheads and
casks of dried apples, peaches, nuts, raisins and other fruits which are constantly
imported hitherquot; ®). Thus, drying of fruit was recommended as a means of
utilizing the surplus, and, at the same time, of bringing the farmer a more generous
share of the gold which quot;unnecessarilyquot; flowed out of the country. At the State
Fair of 1863 a display of California dried prunes and raisins attracted wide
attention

Probably inspired by this initiative a writer in the Mercantile Gazette of
San Francisco prophesied: quot;The man who shall bring into proper notice and
cultivation in California the fig, the raisin and the prune will do the State greater
service than if he should pay her public debt. There is no country in the world
better adapted in every way to their successful cultivation than California. The
United States is now importing these fruits at a cost of $2,318,978. In a few
years, by proper exertion, our orchardists and vinegrowers may supply the
demand of the whole countryquot;, i) To fig and raisin production, the climate of
the Santa Clara Valley was not so well suited, but the matter stood differently
with the prune. Several years passed, however, before the cultivation and drying
of prunes was undertaken to any extent — this in spite of favorable climatic
conditions and a ready market. Plums in many varieties were cultivated, but
they were unsuited for drying The French prune, introduced about 1856, was
excellent for this purpose, but had not been developed. As interest in drying
increased, prune orchards were planted, and plum trees, by budding and grafting,
were turned into prune.

Not until the early seventies was an organized effort directed to the improve-
ment of primitive drying methods; then a commercial drying plant was established
near San Jose In these years began also fruit canning as an industry. In 1869
the overland railway was completed, opening a vast outlet for California fruits.
Already one year later the State shipped east seventy carloads of fresh fruit,
mostly pears. Dried prunes in small quantities soon followed. At the convention
of the Pomological Society in 1870 several speakers voiced the opinion that
California\'s best chances for the future lay in fruit growing The railroad meant
a new era wherein the horticulturists began to produce for the nation, their eyes
already on the world market as the ultimate goal.

^ The cultivation of grapes, which had been initiated by the Spaniards, was
continued and expanded by the Americans. As with other fruits, grapes were
first mostly sold fresh, principally to the mining districts and to San Francisco.
The area in vines increased rapidly. In 1856 there were 150,000 vines in Santa
Clara County; in 1857 there were 500,000. Evidently the early boom was shortlived
for in 1858 there was an increase of only 13,000 vines A similar spread of
vineyard planting in other parts of California led to overproduction. As a means
of disposing of the surplus crop, more attention was given to wine making. In
spite of the fact that the Mission grape was the only type of vine grown in the
region and produced a heavy, coarse, and rather flavorless white wine, it
satisfied the local demand. The success of this enterprise led to still further

plantings. Though the railroad made the East a potential market, the California
wines were not widely accepted because of their inferior quality; even the de-
creased import of French wines, due to the Franco-German War, could not create
the much needed outlet for California production. The consequent depression
lasted for several years. By 1875 many vineyards had been uprooted. A reorganiza-
tion of the industry about 1880 gave new impetus to viticulture. This will be
discussed in Chapter IX.

If in the early years a number of Americans grew vegetables and berries for
sale, it seems that the industry rapidly sank below their liking. The American
who had undergone so many hardships and adventures to reach California was
hardly the type to settle down to this humble work. Early writings mention the
surprising fact that many farmers did not grow a single vegetable crop, but
bought all such produce at the door from pedlars i), fact which shows again how
different from most quot;pioneer periodsquot; was that of the early Americans in the Santa
Clara Valley. From the start the farmer was principally a specialized producer; \'
the state of farm self-sufficiency was skipped over.

As an outgrowth of this attitude a special system of truck farming developed.
Thousands of the Chinese, who had come to the mines as free laborers or coolies,
or who had been imported to work on the transcontinental railroad, remained
in California, many of whom found their way to the Santa Clara Valley where
they secured employment on truck farms and were appreciated for their cheap
and efficient labor. The farmer rented his land to the Chinese, and furnished plants
and water. The Chinese did the planting, cultivation, and harvesting, and delivered
the crop to the white owner who marketed it and divided equally the proceeds

To complete the story of the American pioneer period, a number of additional
ventures in agriculture must be mentioned. Though these never rose to importance
their initiation is significant as an indication of the experimenting spirit of the
times.

It is understandable that among the newcomers were several who started
tobacco growing. The plant flourished luxuriously, and the produce of the Santa
Clara Valley was considered rather good. In the first years of the Civil War the
hope for a good market in the East expanded tobacco planting, but unfamiliarity
with curing methods under Californian climatic conditions resulted in a failure
of the enterprise 3). Yet for years, tobacco remained a product of the Valley,
supplying the Californian market with quot;twist and plugquot;

Another culture which was undertaken with high hopes and for a short time
held expectations for a great future, was the cultivation of the silkworm, intro-
duced by a Frenchman at Milpitas. The worm thrived, quot;indeedquot;, as a report
rejoices, quot;our pure dry atmosphere seems quite as favorable to the health of
the silkworm as to all other kinds of animal Hfequot;. The State offered a high premium
for every thousand mulberry trees of a certain age, with the result that many
farmers started plantingl-egafdless of soil, situation or tree variety. As a conse-
quence, there was a heavy crop of mulberries, much of it of poor quality. It is
recorded that a rather large number of high grade worms were raised; however,
the cheap labor and the specialized knowledge necessary to make the industry
a success were lacking. Though cocoons and eggs for a time were exported to
France, the undertaking was practically ended by the Franco-German War.^.).

The climate proved favorable for the growing of hops, and for drying the
flowers in the open air under sheds. But though the county boosters declared
the crop quality to be the quot;best in the worldquot;, the cultivation always remained
of minor importance Com growing met with little success, because of^th^long
(^y season. Flax, and even sugar cane, it is said, were planted, but both soon
vanished, the former probably by the large amount of labor required, and the
latter by unsuitability of the climate.nbsp;^u^

The largely self-sufficient, Mexican pastoral society had been abmptly
pushed aside by the American capitalistic system of specialized production for
profit. Instead of the mission and rancho, which each had embraced agricultural
as well as manufacturing and trading functions, there came the farm with a
well defined agricultural purpose and the town where manifold trades and indus-
tries centered. Whether or not a service center developed depended on the
population of its potential trading area; its location was mainly determined by
the most favorable site for communication and industry.

Little is known about the population during the first decades of the American
occupation; the census figures of 1850 for Santa Clara County were lost, necessi-
tating a recount in 1852, which showed the number to be 6,764. By 1860 the popu-
lation had nearly doubled, amounting to 11,912, and in the following ten years
it more than doubled to 26,246 The bulk of the population lived in the Northern
S^ion; in 1860 there were in that region 88 quot;/o of the County total, leaving but
12 % to the Central Section In this latter section during the next decade the

*) For the Southern Section, which was at first a part of Monterey County, no com-
parable figures are available for this period. Settlers were very few here before the Hollister
settlement of 1868. (See p 74).

development of farming and the construction of the railroad resulted in an
increase of population, bringing its share of the County figure up to 15 % in 1870.

For the towns, no official data exist before the census of 1870, in which
year San Jose had 9,089 inhabitants and Gilroy 1,625. Estimating that 1,200
people lived in smaller, not separately reported towns, the population of all the
agglomerations was nearly 12,000, or 45 % of the County total. Though without
doubt this number included some farmers, the towns and hamlets had, in the
main, the character of trade and industry centers; as such, the figures just given
indicate the change in settlement pattern which occurred under the American
regime.

To calculate the average population density of the Valley at this period has
little or no value, because of the great differences in settlement between various
portions of the region. An impression of the situation can be gained from the two
maps (Xa and XIa) showing the layout of properties, roads, and the location of
farmsteads in the Northern and Central Sections in 1875. These sample maps
will be referred to in the following chapters, and so will be discussed later.

Nothing is recorded concerning the racial makeup of the group living in the
Santa Clara Valley in the first American decade. In 1860 there were in the County
8,564 native whites, 3,348 foreign born whites, 84 Negroes, and 22 Chinese. By
1870 the first class had increased to 17,241, but the foreign born whites had
gained still more rapidly, numbering 9,005 — more than half of the native white
group. In the sixties there was a great influx of Chinese for railroad construction
work; in 1870 they totaled 1,525. Negroes did not increase much, there being 173
in the County in 1870. In 1880, when the Santa Clara Valley was settling into
more stable conditions, the relation of native born whites to the foreign born
was more than two to one, a proportion which increased to more than four to
one at the present. The census figures for 1880 state that there were 23,646
native born whites, 11,339 foreign born whites, 161 Negroes, and 2,695 Chinese.
Of the foreign born whites the largest groups were: the Irish. 2.365 in 1870 and
2.307 in 1880; the Germans. 1.007 in 1870 and 1.198 in 1880; and the Mexicans.
975 in 1870 and 745 in 1880.

A local source of 1875 i) allows at least an impression of the regions from
where the native American farmers came. The townships taken as samples
were Santa Clara, which includes the town and the area west of it; Milpitas,
which takes in the northeast corner of the County; Burnett and Gilroy, which
together comprise the Central Section. The American farmers of these town-
ships, as mentioned by the business directory, may be classified as in the
following table. The preponderance of the Yankee element in the Santa Clara
Valley is clear if one considers that the Northern States west of the Alleghenies
were peopled by immigrants from New England.

1) Thompson and West, New Historical Atlas of Santa Clara County, 1876. Contains
a business directory by townships, giving name, place, origin, year of settlement in the
County, and the size of the properties. Probably this list has been based on the affidavits
of election registers, and thus does not contain all names.

During the Spanish-Mexican Period the only urban settlement was the
Pueblo San Jose, administrative and social headquarters of the region, and
residence center for the rancheros who had lands nearby In the forties some
Americans — at least non-Mexicans — engaged in trade and industry. In 1840
a newcomer pitched a canvas warehouse beside the rude landing place (embar-
cadero) on the Guadelupe Slough, and thus marked the beginning of the town
of Alviso^); another established near the Pajaro River a small plant for the
manufacturing of soap from tallow. Very soon after gold had been discovered
two small sawmills were erected (1848) in the Valley 3). Hotels were absent in
Mexican times, but the infrequent traveler never failed to find hospitality at a
rancho, and upon departing was offered fresh horses by his host. The new order
of things quickly put an end to this: hotels, livery stables, stores, and saloons
sprang up to profit from the hord of gold seekers and later from the more regular
stage traffic. Along the main routes were soon established post offices and express
depots.

These service institutions, as one might call them, became concentrated at
certain advantageous locations. Four zones of the Santa Clara region possessed
potential commercial and industrial site advantages: the bay shore, its sloughs
connecting with the waterway to San Francisco and the mining districts; the
stage route along the old Camino Real; the foothill belt where rivers offered
favorable situations for mills; the mountains with their resources of timber.

quicksilver, and mineral springs. These four quot;energy beltsquot; did not overlap, and
therefore are relatively simple to trace in their functional development.

The bay shore had reached some importance in Spanish-Mexican times;
the Americans continued and expanded its use, adding warehouses near the
quot;landings.quot; The low land on the edge of the marshes was subject to winter over-
flow, and thus seriously limited in its use for habitation. Only at one spot
had the advantages of traffic more weight than the water logged nature of the
location, namely at Alviso, which lay directly north of the area of densest
population. The town, surveyed in 1849, became a transfer point for travellers
and freight between the Santa Clara Valley and other bay shore lands, especially
San Francisco.

The strongest agent in the formation of commercial clusters proved to be
the stage route from San Francisco, by San Jose, to points south. This road in
the Northern Section traversed the wheat region (see p. 77) where most farmers
had settled. The attraction of this site belt was forcibly strengthened in the
sixties by the construction of a railroad, which, in the main, followed the course
of the Camino Real, and which was part of the Overland Railroad from the east.
California had long agitated in Congress the important need for a rail connection
with the eastern states; finally in 1862 the Railroad Bill was signed and construc-
tion started at once from both east and west The first western link of this line,
from San Francisco to San Jose, was ready in January 1864. About the same
time that the railroad was being extended along the eastern bay shore to the
Sacramento Valley, a branch was being pushed south toward Los Angeles. By
1869 it had reached Gilroy, and the following year a side shoot of this line was
sent to Hollister.

Not only did the shift from stage to railroad profoundly influence the produc-
tion process of the Valley, but also the location and growth of towns. The stations
on the iron road became focal points of a new distribution system. During this
period, the nodes of communication not yet strongly entrenched easily moved
to more favorable locations, or adapted their structure to meet changing circum-
stances. The transpositions of service centers, of which the Santa Clara Valley
offers some interesting examples, throws some light on the causes determining
the origin and growth of towns. (See p. 97).

San Jose, though belonging to the settlements along the Valley thoroughfare,
stands in a class by itself, for its character as the Valley nucleus was already
estabhshed at the time of the gold rush. No better site could have been found for
the local metropolis. In the first years of California statehood, it was even chosen
as capital; but though it officially held this title until 1854, lack of housing and
the competition of other locations caused the moving of the seat already in
1852. Nevertheless, the short period of glory drew much business 2). Naturally
San Jose was a point that determined the direction of the railroad instead of
being drawn to it as were less established settlements.

The town of Holhster, located on the edge of the San Benito River falls
somewhat outside the classification of settlements as given above. It has the
interesting feature that, when the eastern portion of the San Justo Grant was
purchased by a group of settlers (see p. 79). a town site was designated as part
of the subdivision plan i). As such, its origin was different from that of most
Californian service centers and reminds one more of the founding of San Jose
as an agricultural colony of the Spanish frontier, though their functional purposes
were obviously quite different. Neither the stage route nor the main railroad
touched it; both swung into the gap of the Pajaro River south of Gilroy. It was
not until 1870 that an extension of the main railroad was built to Hollister. Since
San Juan Bautista even longer than Hollister was without rail connections, the
latter became the supply and shipping center for the San Benito Valley as well
as for the Bolsa region. This, together with the fact that it was chosen as the
County seat, resulted in a steady growth of its industry and population.

The foothill settlements had yet a different origin. The need for lumber led
to the exploitation of the redwood forests on the slopes of the Santa Cruz Range.
Saw mills were erected on Campbell and Los Gatos Creeks, sites which later
became Saratoga and Los Gatos. With the exhaustion of the timber on the east
side of the front range the saw mills moved back into the mountains; but the
settlements remained, having acquired the new industry of flour mills. Moreover,
the roads from the Santa Clara Valley to Santa Cruz entered the mountains by
way of the mentioned creek canyons. While Los Gatos was situated on the more
important of the two roads. Sar^ga had in its vicinity the additional attraction
of mineral sprmgs. It is a remarkable fact that in the early sixties and perhaps
^ alread^efore. these and other springs were lively w^ering places, an indication
of how rapidly life in the Santa Clara Valley emerged from pioneer conditions—
if such conditions in the usual sense of the term can be said ever to have existed
there in American times. Wheat farming had proved a profitable enterprise, and,
since it was a seasonal occupation, gave much spare time. In addition to the wheat
farmers were those people who had made money in mining and associated
businesses and had retired to live in San Jose. The resorts were frequented by
these classes with money and leisure. Congress Springs near Saratoga. Alum
Rock Sulphur Springs in the mountains due east of San Jose, and also Gilroy
Hot Springs well in the range northeast of Gilroy, became popular places. A
contemporary writer stated that the Alum Rock Springs quot;are an easy hour\'s drive
from town [San Jose] and many people ride out for a morning bath, returning in
time for breakfastquot; 3).

In this connection it may be mentioned .that in 1872 an area of four hundred
acres centering around Alum Rock Canyon was reserved by San Jose as a city
park, a fact that again illustrates the high cultural level of the Early American

2)nbsp;Another example of a planned California community is Anaheim near Los Angeles;
see H. F. Raup, quot;The German Colonization of Anaheim, California,quot; U. of Calif. Publ. in
Geography, vol. 6, no. 3, Berkeley, 1932.

Period in the Santa Clara Valley. This gesture may be called an echo of the park
movement which, in the sixties, began in the United States as a reaction to the
wholesale desecration of natural resources that, up to then, had attended the
vast land colonization i). Except for the resort near Saratoga these places did
not influence the growth of towns since their locations were in the mountains.

The quicksilver mines in the Santa Cruz Range were significant inasmuch
as their production influenced to some extent the development of the Valley.
Their export was a notable item of the landings. Later a railroad branch was built
to New Almaden. As landscape forms, however, these mining settlements may
be disregarded here as they do not belong to the Valley itself.

1) L. Mumford, 65 ff. In 1864 Yosemite Park and Mariposa Grove of Big Trees were
ceded by the federal government to California.

The first overwhelming rush to the mines drained the settlements of the
Santa Clara Valley and left the entire region with a desolate appearance i); by
1849 the land utilization reached its lowest ebb since the establishment of white
occupation, but it was not long before the stream of would-be miners was met
by a countercurrent of those who were returning to engage in trade, industry
and agriculture.

Many of the new immigrants believed that California as a whole was unfit
for cultivation The scarcity of trees, and especially the barren appearance
of the country during the greater part of the year, must have made an unfavorable
impression. The experiences of Captain Sutter in the Sacramento Valley, whose
harvests had been repeatedly destroyed during the dry years of the forties,
certainly prejudiced many of the people with whom he came in contact 3).

Easterners, unacquainted with the pastoral economy of the Mexicans, took
the scarcity of croplands as an expression of California\'s unsuitability to agricul-
ture. Bidwell, who arrived with the first overland party in 1841, mentions that
very little wheat was grown by the Mexicans, and that in dry years no one had
bread except some wealthy families. The mission estates with their wide grain
fields were a thing of the past, and what little cultivation had remained was
neglected during the first frenzy of the gold rush. The years 1849 and 1850 passed
without much attention to agriculture except for the raising of some vegetables
and berries. (See p. 67). It seems that in 1851 the first significant wheat and
barley crop was harvested on the eastern bay shore in Alameda County, a success
which stimulated grain growing, and thus farming as a business

The soils that came to be considered best for grain growing in the Bay
Region were the brown, rich Yolo loams (see p. 27 and map 2, plate II) which
lie as a central zone be^eeii the yellowish brown, gravelly Yolo loams to the_
southeast and the black adobe lands bordering the marshes. This middle belt

2) Report VII, 36; Report VIII, 69. Tyson himself, as other intelligent observers,
had a better understanding of California\'s possibilities. See 58.

8. A grain farm about 1875 two km southeast of Cupertino. House with porches and quot;lean-
to ; carved verge boards along roof edge. Note the partly open wagon shed and stable, the
spacious grounds and orchard lot. In the grain field is ei header at work. At left a threshing
machme. The grain stacks, the fences and the scattered broad-crowned oaks are also quite
characteristic. To the east is the Diablo Range. This particular farm, still owned and
managed by a son of the original settler, was composed of 470 acres in 1875, but numbers now
125 acres, entirely in orchard as is all land in tliis region.

was preferred because of its own suitability as well as for certain unfavorable
characteristics of the other two belts. The adobe area was considered undesirable
for grain farming because it is very difficult to cultivate, in dry weather shrinking
into hard blocks separated by wide cracks, and in wet seasons becoming exceed-
ingly sticky, the water standing on its flat surfaces for days. Later it was learned
that these heavy black soils, ifjuffi^ntly_drained and cultivated to establish
the proper state of granulation, would^ive high_yields of grain; but, since these
special tillage methods were unknown to the pioneer farmers, the adobe was
usually left to pasture land which, with the high water table, the cool air, and
the fogs of the bay environs, carried a good grass cover most of the year.

The ^avelly loanw, edging the opposite side of the grain belt, lie along the
Santa Cruz foothills on the upper portions of the alluvial fans, generally stretching
in tongue-like formations approximately as far as the two hundred feet isohyps.
Though it is difficult to determine the original vegetation of this zone (see p. 30 ff),
it seems certain that part of it was covered with brush. Old timers, as well as
contemporary writers 1), mention the fact that in many places this land had to
be cleared of^^aparral, The labor thus involved, together with the stony and
often thin character of the soil, made grain farming here unprofitable. The few
who settled on these lands were mostly poor people who had arrived too late to
afford better locations. With great toil they succeeded in clearing small patches;
often they were forced to trade chaparral roots as fuel for groceries in San Jose.
Even after the farm was planted there was yet a new struggle, to exterminate
the quot;ground squirrelsquot; 2) which overran the fields from adjacent chaparral lands.

Thus, the quot;fundamentquot; of the grain belt was formed by the medium textured.
Joams and clay loams of the middle valley floor. This land was easily prepared
because of its light vegetation, and gave excellent yields because of the friable
and deep nature of its rich, virgin soil. Not only wheat, but barley was grown
extensively in this region. Before the soils became depleted, it was not uncommon
^ for most of the crops to be of volunteer grain, that is, grain grown from seed left
m the field after harvesting. In 1856 a committee of judges for the State Fair
reported a field near Santa Clara where the fifth barley crop of a single sowing
was harvested. Without special care, the average yield of this last crop was as
high as forty-three bushels to the acre

In early days the method of preparing the soil was merely a superficial
scratching of the surface. Dunn reported that for a following crop quot;the ground
is harrowed with a light cultivator, but in the majority of cases by simply dragging
brush over it. Our farmer now considers his field as sown and awaits the harvest
timejo reap the rewards of his laborsquot; This statement may have been true

Letter of Beardsly, quoted by W. S. Cooper II, 13; J. J. Owen in: Transactions 1872;
personal information from old settlers, especially Mr. Tantau.

e cultivit^ri^quot;\'^^^^nbsp;Francisco: Survey of Township 7 S.R. 2 W (1864?) shows

of^upertino ^ ^^^^^^ amidst quot;chemisalquot; near the present Fremont Corners, two miles north

for the Santa Clara region of the fifties and for pioneer farming of later date
elsewhere in California. It is unlikely, however, that this method prevailed in the
Valley in the seventies, for writers of that time mention better — though far
from intensive — modes of cultivation as being common.

The^^^hless exploitation of the soils, as had been generally practiced, and
the resulting~aecfease in yields, had made imperative the inauguration of better
cultivation methods. Progressive farmers used their fields alternately for grain
and pastiife7T5ut this was only a partial remedy for recovery of the soil, as the
unbroken stubble lands were too hard and compact to absorb the winter rains.
^Therefore, to conserve a part of the moisture which so rapidly evaporated early
in the dry season, plowing in spring followed by summer fallow was recommended;
by this way the land was allowed to rest, a crop being raised but once in two
years i). The land to be seeded was plowed usually after the first fall rains had
softened the hard baked soil, though sometimes even as late as February. The
Californian farmer did not make the distinction between spring and winter grains,
the same kind of wheat and barley being used for both seasons.

When the cattle indjis^ shifted to more intensive methods, hay production
became a necessity. As meadows could not form a part of the agricultural system
except when and where irrigation was feasible, the hay grasses commonly grown
in the eastern states had to be replaced in the Santa Clara Valley by grains cut
green Often the late-sown wheat and barley were harvested in April or May for
this purpose. The harvest for grain was in June The grain, after cutting, was
put into stacks and, as soon as a machine could be obtained, threshed in the field.
Sometimes it was stored in a granary, but often, there being little danger of rain, it
was left lying in sacks upon the field for months until it was sold. In August and
September the square piles of white sacks in the stubble fields were a common
and prominent feature of the landscape. Before the header came into general
use, the straw piles left after threshing were burned following the first rains,
and quot;columns of smoke rose all over the valleyquot; When, in the seventies, the
header became common, the straw was left standing and the field used for pasture; \'
the plant remains were later plowed uhdeFas fertilizer. As cattle were left in
the open, manure economy did not exist, and thus there was little use for straw.
After the baling of the hay and the threshing of the grain crop — both usually
by gangs of contractors — the farmer had a long period of leisure until the coming
of the rains ®). It is of interest to note that in this wheat period the peak of
agricultural activity was reached in winter and spring — a contrast to the present
horticultural era wherein the summer is the busy season.

The best wheat of the Valley was grown on the sandy loam around Santa
Clara, and on the somewhat gravelly loam east of San Jose. Less glutinous wheat

See the picture of a grainfarm opposite p. 76.
*) J. S. Hittell, 163.
«) Report II (Hilgard), 10—11.

came from the clay loams of the bottomlands near Alviso In the Central
Section, by the early sixties, some owners of large cattle ranches sold portions
of their valley lands for grain farms. Cronise writes in 1868 that quot;from San Jose
to Gilroy the valley, in summer, forms an almost unbroken wheatfieldquot; This
seems an exaggerated statement, as the map in Thompson and West\'s Historical
Atlas (1876) clearly shows that several grants were still undivided, some of which
served for ranging purposes until about the beginning of this century. These
cattle ranches lay mainly on what were — for that period at least — marginal
lai^s: the bay border, the valley slopes and backlying mountain regions, the
Bolsa, and wide belts cutting across the grain fields of the Central Section.
Though, generally speaking, the lands best in soil and location had been taken;
up for grain farms, this can not be stated as a rule, for the personal element also
entered in as a factor determining the agricultural utilization. So, for example,
the favorable Yolo loams of the present Sunnyvale site long remained part of a
stock ranch; the same was true of the recent alluvial loams south of Gilroy.

In 1868 the higher, non-alkali part of the Southern Section was also trans-
formed from a well nigh uninhabited grazing country into a farmers\' community.
In that year the 21,000 acres which formed the eastern part of the San Justo
grant, till then a sheep range, were sold to a quot;Homestead Associationquot;, an
organization like many in California in those days, formed by a number of people
who pooled their money to buy a large tract to subdivide among themselves.
The land was divided into two classes: farms in the bottom lands and stock
ranges on the hillsides. The staple crops of wheat and barley from this region
were at first with difficulty exported because of the remoteness of the shipping
places, but this isolation was abolished by the completion of the railroad
through Gilroy and by the later branch line to Hollister

In addition to the grain fields, orchard patches, truck gardens, and vineyards
were the wide pasture lands which, as previously stated, occupied the marginal
lands. The practice of the Mexicans had been to graze their herds in the bottom-
lands during the summer, and then to drive them to hill pasture. At first the
Americans followed the same method, but soon fencing made this system of
reserved pasture impossible. The result was that the open range became heavily
overstocked. The new grass was eaten before seed had been dropped, thus seriously
depleting the grass cover and giving opportunity for all kinds of annual growth
to claim the soil and gradually to push out the perennials Since the mild climate
did not make imperative the building of winter shelters or the hoarding up of
forage, barns were not to be found on the ranches, only corrals for the periodical
round-up and branding of the cattle 5). During hard winters and in seasons

of drought this exposure and lack of feed meant at least a decrease in cattle
weight, and often a severe loss of stock i). It was only after the drought of 1864
that more intensive methods began to spread, leading to the planting of forage
crops, to the establishment of feeding sheds, and, as a whole, to better utihzation
of the range. Though some good breeds of cattle had been imported before this
time, the matter was now given much attention.2)

When, during the sixties, portions of the Central Section valley floor and
the southwestern part of the Hollister Basin were blocked out as farm enclosures,
the only region in the Santa Clara Valley which still retained its homogeneous
pasture character was centered around the alkali flat of the Bolsa. The largest
ranch in this section is well described in a government publication, the quot;Report
on the Production of Meatquot; Though this report refers to a date somewhat later
than the period treated in this chapter, it may be assumed that the situation was
not materially changed. It also shows the range methods as were employed on
the better ranches after the open range had disappeared. The entire property
contained 800,000 acres, of which 500,000 acres were divided into pastures ranging
from 100 to 20,000 acres, fenced with redwood posts and pine boards, and com-
prising hill, valley, and bottomland pasturage. This ranch had one of the best
locations in the valley, embracing the uplands southwest of Gilroy, already noted
m the sixties as very favorable grazing lands because of their location within
the range of ocean fogs which, entering through the Pajaro Gap, kept the grass
green through most of the summer. quot;So valuable are some of these lands for this
purpose, that their owners hold them at higher prices than the grain lands of the
valleyquot;«). On the ranch here described stock cattle were held on the hill pastures
during winter and spring, that is, from the first rains in November until May.
In summer they were removed, or moved themselves if the pastures included
both hill and lowland, to the fresher grasses of the Valley. The beef cattle
were fed in feed yards and, to a limited extent, in stalls. When ready for
marketing they were shipped by way of the Southern Pacific north to the San
Francisco slaughter-yards. From some of the pastures, drives were made to
San Francisco, vaqueros on the way keeping the cattle from the cultivated
fields and, at suitable intervals along the route, holding and grazing them over-
night on pastures previously secured by the ranch owners.

The lowlands along the Bay, where restricted drainage conditions cause a
higher water table, offered the best pasture lands in the Northern Section.
Dairies were established in this region in the fifties. Part of the Central Section
near Gilroy also began to develop as a dairy district in 1863. Here a willow
covered marsh, formed by the Carnadero Creek which spread its water over a

flat basin, was drained and a dairy started on the cleared land . Other dairies
followed, until about 1870 the Gilroy district was noted as a center for this
industry. Because of the distance to non-rural agglomerations, all the milk was
used for cheese making. The largest farms milked about six hundred cows, and
several others had from two to three hundred cows each 2). It is reported that in
1881 there were about 3,000 dairy cows in this district, and the production of
cheese amounted to one million pounds annually^). Most of the cattle were of
Shorthorn stock which could serve the dual purpose of beef or dairy.

At first the dairy farms did not greatly differ in appearance from the stock
farms, save for some accommodations for the handling of milk and for the manu-
facture of butter and cheese. The cows, like the range cattle, were fed on the
natural pastures, with the addition, in later years, of some winter feed such as
wild oats, grass, or volunteer grain which had been cut for hay. As the pasture
supply became more uncertain, dairy people over the entire State began experi-
menting with timothy, red top, blue grass, mesquite grasses, and alfalfa. Of these
forage grasses, alfalfa was considered, already in 1863, as having the most advan-
tages for the Californian environment^). It is said to have been imported in 1851
from Chili, whence it was called Chilean clover; later it was recognized as being
the well known old world plant, Medicago Sativa^). Because of its deep roots,
alfalfa can obtain moisture from far beneath the surface. Though admirably
adapted to the Californian climate, if watered properly, it did not become popular
for some time; probably this was due to the limited use of irrigation as well as
to the belief that it gave the milk a disagreeable taste. At a meeting of the San Jose
Farmers\' Club in 1872 it was stated that quot;alfalfa ruins the land and cattle don\'t
like it. It is a curse to any farm —worse than Canada thistlesquot; ®). Nowhere in the
de.scriptions of the Santa Clara Valley of 1875 is alfalfa mentioned as a fodder crop.

Compared with wheat and pasture lands, the territory occupied by other
vegetational assemblages was only a small part of the Valley. Yet, from a quot;pic-
torialquot; standpoint, these patches stood out distinctly against the dominant
grass landscape. If the fruit culture of today is kept in mind, these sections
gain an increased importance: the orchards, vineyards, berry and vegetable fields
of this time were the forerunners of intensive land utilization. Most farmers
throughout the Valley had orchards with many kinds of trees, but especially
peaches and apples in numerous varieties for home use as well as for marketing
to San Francisco and the mining districts\'). The cultivation of these crops,

This is from a report of a quot;visiting committeequot; of the California State Agricultural
Society in 1858. As there were then very few farms outside the Northern Section, the statement
obviously pertains to this part of the valley.

however, was mainly located on the rich bottom lands around San Jose and
Santa Clara i); in 1863 there were approximately 1100 acres of orchard in this
vicinity Easy access to the bay provided this district with cheap transportation
connections. In and around these centers, numerous owners of small lots used
them to advantage by cultivating berries, vegetables, grapes and fruits. When
more stable conditions began to develop in the sixties, many who had prospered
during the gold days, as well as others who had come to California for their
health, chose San Jose and its environs as their home. Among these classes were
a considerable number who took up orcharding or established nurseries, some as
a hobby, others as a matter of speculative interest.

It seems that in the first two decades of the American occupation, perhaps
in imitation of the Spanish gardening methods, it was thought necessary to water
p the orchards and vineyards abundantly. In 1854 the first artesian well had been
I drilled in San Jose. Soon, by this method, the majority of farms in this district
secured water at a depth of only twenty meters and many farmers used it for
their orchards. Just south of San Jose lay a flat country which was annually
flooded by the Guadelupe River and which was called quot;the Willowsquot; because of
the trees that grew there in abundance. About 1863 this was cleared for straw-
berries. Later, in 1868, when strawberry culture shifted to Agnew where artesian
wells made regular irrigation more certain, the Willows were planted to fruit
trees, and for some time formed the principal orchard section of the valley^).

As most of the growers were unfamiliar with the art of fruit raising, and
certainly with proper irrigation methods, the effect often was the reverse of
beneficial®). As a consequence, many farmers abandoned irrigation, and relied
on mulching the surface soil and keeping it free from weeds, a practice — it is
reported — which gave very favorable results. After all, the precipitation for
the valley (about 16 inches) is on the average sufficient for horticulture if the
requirements do not set too strict a standard for regular and high grade output;
both of these factors entered into the production process only much later than
the period under discussion- Though the drought of 1864 renewed the agitation
for irrigation, it is not known that the movement considerably altered the situation

This time marks not only the beginning of the fruit tree conquest of the
region, but also of the tree form peculiar to Cahfornia. It was found that low
training and heading them close to the ground, made the trees mature earlier,
kept their trunks shaded, and thereby protected them from wind and sun scald,
and preserved the soil moisture. Furthermore, the trees were planted nearer
together than was usual in the east, and the soil kept free from weeds 7).

\')nbsp;J. S. Hittell mentions this as a general practice as early as 1863; 402 ft.

It was believed that the higher parts of the Valley with their dry, gravelly
soil were unfit for orchards, as they had shown themselves unsuitable to wheat
growing In 1875 the first orchard was established in the foothills near Los Gatos
L land cleared of chaparral, an enterprise which was considered a quot;foohsh under-
takingquot; by growers of the bottomlands i). Against all expectations, the trees
thrived on the gravelly soil. Though the type of cultivation used is unknown,
very likely it was some form of dry tillage. Moreover, the greater amount of
rainfall before the Los Gatos Gap and the decreased danger from killmgjros^ts 2),
especially for the early blooming apricots, made this a most favorable fruit
environment. It is not certain when the agricultural importance of this difference
in temperature was first recognized. Two instances of 1875 were found that
mention the quot;warm beltquot; quot;This beltquot;, writes Owen, quot;commences at an altitude
of about four hundred feet above the level of the valley, and extends to an
altitude of about twelve hundred feet, including a belt of country upon the
mountain sides of from one to three miles in width, and stretches all along the
whole length of the valley. It is so distinctly defined that residents of the moun-
tains in riding up from the valley, in the night time when the air is still, can tell
within a few rods where they will enter the warmer currents.quot; By personal
observation and inquiry the writer found that the influences of this difference
in temperature is felt even at a lower altitude, starting about one hundred meter

Beginning about 1870 the remaining stretches of chaparral along the foothills
were cleared, the work being done mostly by Chinese contractors. The San
Francisco-San Jose Railway paid $6.00 per load for chaparral roots, a demand
having gradually developed for such fireplace fuel; this price often more than
equalled the expense of reclaiming the land It having been established that
horticulture could be profitably undertaken on these higher fan parts, several
orchards were set out in this region - for some time to come, however, only
as minor landscape elements in comparison to the vineyards.

With the Spanish-Mexican methods as a precedent, the Americans established
vineyards in the fifties, on the heavy black and wet soils of the bottomlands;
but the vines did not prosper here Not until the late sixties was better grape
cultivation-iHtF^ced: two Frenchmen planted vineyards on the gravelly loams
in the foothills north of New Almaden. This pioneering venture was a success, and
its example — as with so many early Californian crops — quickly stimulated like
plantings. Vineyards were set out all along the western foothills, and especially
on the fans of the Stevens and Permanente Creeks; as early as 1872 the reddish
gravelly loams of this region became known as the grape belt or the quot;foothill!

wine district.quot; Most of the tracts were small in size, twenty acres being about
the average, though a very large vineyard of one hundred and forty acres is
mentioned in 1872

The relation of early horticulture to the entire agricultural pattern of the
Santa Clara Valley should not be misjudged: orchards, vineyards, and berries,
though discussed in this chapter to some length, were relatively secondary to
the still dominant grain and grass cover of the region. This is evident from the
records of the 1875 County Atlas wherein are drawn the individual fruit tracts»).
The assessor reported for Santa Clara County in 1874 a total of 380,000 fruit trees
and 1,240,000 grape vines, occupying all together, it may be estimated, approxi-
mately 5,000 to 6,000 acres. As in that year there were recorded 207,000 acres of
cultivated land, it is obvious that orchards and vineyards constituted only a
very small part of the Valley landscape.

The average farm combines two functions: as residence, and as production
unit; these find their landscape expression in the farmstead and in the land. As
farms compose the basic pattern of an agricultural region, their distribution and
morphology determine the rural scene. Both the arrangement and form of the
farms depend mainly on the type of agricultural economy, though modified by
the land system, tradition, and other social determinants.

In the Santa Clara Valley during the Early American Period, the large size
of farms was a reflection of wheat raising as the dominant agricultural activity.
In 1880 the farms of Santa Clara County averaged 213 acres, nearly half of them
being between 100 and 500 acres; since wheat culture was at this time already
on the decline, it may be confidently taken that in the sixties and seventies the
holdings had been still larger. In the wheat belt of the Northern Section, where
land and marketing possibilities were best, the farms on the average were smaller
than in the other sections, and where horticulture had come to center around the

Note for Map VIII: Since the surveys of the townships and ranchos were made at
different dates, or resurveyed, it is impossible to give a definite year for this map. As a whole,
it serves to illustrate conditions about 1855 as they were in the earliest settled district of
the Valley. Note the density of houses on the government land in comparison with the few
on the ranchos. Yet squatters were evidently not absent. (See f.i. the quot;canvas housequot;). Note
also the large number of houses on the loams south of Santa Clara in contrast to the relatively
small number on the heavy textured soils in the north near the Bay. Forbes\' Town later
became Los Gatos, and Mc Cartysville—Saratoga. quot;Campbell\'s Placequot; is the origin of the
present town of Campbell. Mark the strawberry lands near the Bay at Alviso; also the flour
mills, one on Guadelupe Creek, and one south in the foothills on Los Gatos Creek. Note the
brush fence at lower right of the map. The four small, family orchards may well be compared
with the solid orchard landscape in this district today.

cities and towns tlie tracts were still smaller. In decided contrast to these were
he vast cattle ranches, particularly those in the Bolsa. The pecuhant.es ^ tte
Mexican land system, the various ways in which the grants were suteequentl
divided into farms, and the introduction of American survey methods ^
made a definite imprint on the regional design of boundary hues and roads. In

illustration of these points. Maps Xa and XIa(p.95) present two sampleareas, one

squot; from the Northern Section and one from the Central Section, showmg
the layout of properties in 18751).

The sample selected from the Northern Section covers a strip of about a
mile in width and twelve miles in length, comprising an area of twelve square

miles (31 4 sq.km). This land borders on either side a north-south road about two
and oL half miles west of Santa Clara, and is subdivided into fa^s from the Bay
till in the foothills - in this respect representative for most o the Northern Sec-
tion at this date. The strip partly includes land that was not m Mexican land grants
(see also Map VIII), a district surveyed by the Federal Land Office into towships
each six miles long by six miles wide and containing thirty-six square sections.
Btauquot; oT he bo?deLg ranchos, few townships could be laid out completely
this can be seen in the northern part of the sample area which crosses the Rancho
Pastoria de las Borregas, and in the southern part which takes m portions of the
Quito Rancho and of the Rancho Rinconada de los Gatos. When these grants
were later subdivided, the new property lines and roads were often so designed
as to make connections with those already existing. Thus, the roads of this region
a e in the main orientated to the cardinal points of the compass. The
farm teads\') as would be expected, lie scattered, each on its property; in total
theTe are fifty-six in this sample strip - that is, an average of nearly two houses

quot; TheTrplfrrr:;-the central Section lies between Perry. Station and
Morgan Hill, and is comprised of 6.78 square miles (18 sq. km). That this region
was earher entirely in grants may be clearly seen from the arrangement of proper-
ties =) Uninfluenced by the sectionized survey system used m part of the Bay
Region these later property lines definitely conformed to the underlying rancho
outline which had been closely adjusted to the regional physiognomy: the rancho
ZTLes followed the crests of the ridges and crossed the Valley by straight
UnerLreby including portions of the wooded Santa Cru. Range and of the
grassy Diablo Range and between them the entire valley floor «^f water
frpply The nature of the breakdown of these large holdings is well illustrated
Tthlt the best valley lands were subdivided into farms running f^m either
le of the main road to the foot of the mountain slope, and m that the mountam-

.) The sample area in the Southern Section (opp. p. 145) is not directly oon^parable as

road, one mile south of the Stevens Creek Road,
a) Compare with Map VI, page 58.^

KEY

^^ pai/roac/s tvii-hjèoppLngplaces

roadô
P ehief- towm
O j/^all êoivj^ô

rgt;urgt;ai jenuice ceni-ens

The need to protect the fieldsnbsp;^^ „„„over,
pp.61 and 62, compelled facers to —fields. Thus, there came

into being a veritable network of «^-od ^nbsp;„j „^k tree
rural landscapeThe f.rst

of the nearby Santa Cruz Range- ^Xj .tog out of the hill country by splitting
the poor people who, as a side line, ekednbsp;the redwood posts

Evennbsp;whennbsp;thenbsp;fencingnbsp;ofnbsp;fieldsnbsp;wasnbsp;nonbsp;long^^^^^^^^^^^nbsp;P^nbsp;^^^^^^

With the exhaustion of \'he forests m the vicin^^^^^^^
to such an extent that search began tonbsp;fo/the importation of the

of California Academy of Sciences 1873, volnbsp;J^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^nbsp;of

produce, and implements i). By about 1875 barns and granaries had become
general features of the farmstead. The walls of these buildings were constructed
of vertical redwood boards and the roof as a straight low gable effect. On dairy
farms hay feeding became common in the seventies, though the cows were
usually left in the open and milked in a corral near the milk shed; on stock
ranches, feeding shelters were established to help the beef cattle through the
winter Later more protection was afforded by extending the roof of the hay barn
to a flat angle on either side and supporting it by poles, thus formmg two open
wings On the better farms it became the practice to milk cows in the barn;
then the wings were enclosed, and the hay stored in the loft, above a center aisle
between the mangers. On large dairy farms, especially in the Hollister district
an additional lean-to was often added to the rear of the barn. The walls were le t
unpainted or whitewashed, as the semi-arid climate did not compel careful paint-
ing This and the hghtness of construction, gave many farmsteads a shoddy
appearance. A boosting article of 1873 excuses this as the effect of chmate.
quot;A stable in the Santa Clara Valley is comfortable enough if the roof keeps the
rain outquot; 2). Other buildings of the average farmyard consisted of at least one
horse stable, a wagon house, and, as an unfailing feature, the metal windmill and

In the early fifties the building of houses was scarcely possible, for lumber
was at $250 to $700per thousand feet, labor at quot;an ouncequot; of gold, or $16 a day,
and hauHng costs proportional. A certain landowner who purchased a ranch near
Santa Clara for the purpose of subdivision imported a shipload of houses from
Philadelphia, several of which still existed until a few years ago^ That .his was
- not an exceptional case is evidenced by the many houses in the San a Clara
Valley that made the trip around the Horn. Other dwe ings had at least th
doors and windows imported ready made from the east the first protestant
church at San Jose, built in 1851, had doors, windows, bhnds and pews from a
demolished church in New York Simple, old-style, frame structures were
brought in from the east. Those from Philadelphia were two stories high with
unfinished attic, and had a wide porch extending along the front, two windows
at each side of the door, and five windows on the upper story; at one end of the
building was a chimney and at the other end windows; the roof was shingled,
and the outside walls clapboarded and tightly mortised; all doors and window
casings were painted white and the outside shutters dark g^e^n«) These houses
probably served as models to several builders in the Valley who added, however
alterations such as small dormer windows, or a wing to form the L or T-type of

house so well known in the east. Redwood from the Santa Cruz Mountains was exten-
sively used in the construction. Other settlers built residences as they had known
them in their home states, some of which buildings are still standing. There were,
for instance, old-fashioned Kentucky houses (see photo 9), low, white painted struc-
tures in L-form with clapboarded walls, brick outside chimney at one end, and sohd
porch along the front; there were echoes of the quot;Greek Revival in Architecturequot; i)
several immigrants from Ohio, Illinois, and Iowa building houses with the entabla-
ture around the end of the gable or the portico, but with the sidings seldom laid
flush, the walls being clapboarded most frequently; there was the Georgian device
of having the entablature only returning a foot or two at the end of the gable
instead of extending fully across; there were also newer fashions among which
many were of the so-called Victorian Gothic, and, somewhat later, of the French
Empire style. The preachings of the architectural reformer Downing, on rural-
gothic cottages 2) found a ready hearing among the farmers of the Valley. Sharp
pointed gables, with a complete disregard to their inappropriateness in a semi-
arid chmate, became here a characteristic feature and, on the side of the gable,
quot;verge boardsquot; cut out with the jig saw and fastened to the under side of the
eaves. Instead of vertical wooden siding, as in the orthodox Downing product,
horizontal boarding was commonly used. The roof was covered with shingles
often in diamond, octagon, or rounded patterns. Several houses of this construc-
tion are still standing in the Valley, especially in the Northern Section.

The French Empire style, often selected by the wealthy people, was used to
a great extent around San Jose. The dominant feature was the mansard roof
which crowned the two or three-story structure and which was covered by
shingles in various colors and shapes, elaborately laid out to form rows and patterns.
The building was further decorated by oriels, bays, jigsaw brackets, panels of
wood in pattern, high and narrow windows, not a feature that was not quot;writhing
in architectural agony.quot; 3) (Photo 10). This eclective type of architecture may
be said to symbolize that period of American civilization after the Civil War which
various writers have designated as the quot;Parvenu Periodquot;, the quot;Gilded Agequot;, and
the quot;Brown Decades.quot; Though essentially a city type, this structure was without
hesitation transplanted to the open country. An illustration of the attitude which
allowed this is well presented by a contemporaneous and local architectural
source 4). After having remarked that many of these houses are built
around the San Francisco Bay, the authors state: quot;The majority of buildings now
being erected on the Pacific Coast are designed in the Free or Knickebocker,
Picturesque, Eastlake, Queen Anne, Colonial, and Renaissance styles, with
Moorish embellishments . . . Some of the pecuhar characteristic points in the
above styles as designed here, are the enclosed balconies, open verandas, large
and ornamental gables, or pediments which are thrown in where least expected,
thereby adding to the uniqueness of design. Some of these gables are roughly

2)nbsp;A. J. Downing, quot;The Architecture of Country Houses,quot; N Y 1852
T. E. Talmadge, 150.nbsp;\' \'

agricultural products was necessarily limited i). Flour mills were scattered over
the Valley, several run by steam as were those in San Jose, Gilroy, and Alviso,
and others by water power as was that at Los Gatos. San Jose and Los Gatos
each had a woolen mill, since sheep husbandry invited the industry; tanneries,
saddleries, a glove, boot and shoe factory used the hides brought in from the
cattle ranches. A cheese f^ory at Gilroy offered a market for the milk of the
district. Here too was a plant to utilize the tobacco crop of the vicinity. The
local demand for machinery, wagons, agricultural implements, and cast iron
work was supplied by,several shops. The lumber mills, having exhausted the i
forests on the valley slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains, had disappeared to the I
other side of the summit; some planing mills, however, remained in San Jose and
Santa Clara. Since the fruit export industry was only in its infancy, there was in
1875 but one fruit preserving plant in the Valley, located near San Jose. At this
time there were also some factories at these places for the making of fruit boxes.
The increasing practice of wrapping the fruit gave outlet to several paper plants,
a large one — formerly a flour mill — on the Guadelupe River south of Alviso, and
another at Saratoga where there was also a pasteboard mill. San Jose not only
commanded the bulk of industries, but was the County seat and tl^ financial
and social center of the Valley. Most of the institutions for higher education had
developed there and at Santa Clara. Well-to-do citizens had their homes in or
near these towns 2).

Comparedwith the multiple functions of the quot;twin-cityquot; region of San Jose
and Santa Clara, the social-economic structure of the other agglomerations was
far more simple. Gilroy, due to its remoteness from the Bay District assumed
more or less the character of a regional node; and, on a smaller scale, Hollister
fulfilled the same junction for its environs of the Southern Section. The old
commercial directories permit an insight into the type of services found in the
smaller towns. There follows a table of the most prevalent occupational and
industrial activities, the figures stating the number of each kind in 1875 in
the towns sampled. Of the towns here listed, Gilroy was the only one with
a population more than 1,000, having 1,625 for the year 1870 and 1,631 in 1880.
Los Gatos had about 500 in 1875, Mountain View about 250, and the others even
less. If one adds to this list the schools, the post and express offices, the warehouses
at the railroad stations and landings, the houses of merchants, teamsters, work-
men, of the quot;captainsquot; in towns near the Bay, and of the millers and industrial
laborers in manufacturing towns, one gains an impression of the social and indus-
trial composition of the local centers.

1)nbsp;Sources for industries: Ninth Census of 1870, Industry and Wealth, Selected Statis-
tics of Manufactures, Table XI. Thompson and West, 12—13, List of Manufactures.
Handbook of Santa Clara County, 1875.

I The Mexican road system, if the few more or less defined trails may thus be
^called, was in its main lines in close harmony with the regional configuration.
The Camino Real, entering the Valley between the spurs of the Santa Cruz Range
and the rounded Lomerias Muertas, followed the valley floor through the Central
Section and Coyote Narrows to a point in the lowlands near San Jose where it
branched to either side of the Bay. The road to the eastern Bay shore had been
established in Mexican times as a connection with the Mission San Jose, and during
the gold rush days had become much traveled as it led to the easy pass over the
Diablo Range. The western branch, to San Francisco, had two routes, one in
summer near the Bay, the other during the rainy winter months on higher grounds
about a mile or more to the south i). Here the soil was loam instead of adobe, which
latter so quickly became water-logged and sticky. The same seasonal road condi-
tion existed between San Jose and Santa Clara; a detour south of the Alameda
was significantly called the quot;Winter Road 2). By 1850 two stagelines had already

1)nbsp;Supervisor\'s office, Santa Clara County. Mapbook I contains an interesting sketch
map of about 1852 showing these two roads; the northern is indicated as quot;old roadquot; and
the southern as quot;present road.quot;

2)nbsp;Supervisor\'s office, Mapbook I, 13 (March 1853). On the map is written between
the two roads — quot;soft mudquot;, and quot;marshquot;.

5ITUATON

1875

AS TO PROPERTIES
AND HOU5tS

ALSO igt;HOWINe SOILS

been established between San Francisco and San Jose, the fare being thirty-
two dollars, but service had to be abandoned during the wet season when the
roads became impassable i). A more preferable route from San Jose to San Fran-
cisco lay via Alviso where the stages were met by bay steamers; yet here too, near
the Bay between San Jose and Alviso, the traffic was often halted by the water-
logged condition of the region. When rail connections were established between
San Jose and San Francisco in 1864, Alviso was hard hit. At the instigation of
vegetable growers in this district, a narrow gauge railroad was constructed in
1878 between Santa Clara and the port; but this brought little revival because the
competing company of the main line lowered its rates as soon as the Alviso

In addition to the State highway, to answer the need for better communi-
cation, a number of County roads were constructed connecting the towns of
the Valley and breaking through the mountains to link with the Santa Cruz-
Monterey district on the southwest and the San Joaquin Valley on the east. The
high expenses involved in repairing the highways led to the granting of franchises
to toll companies, an arrangement which shifted the burden from the County
to the road user. Naturally, the more difficult roads which lay through the adobe
belt and the mountain regions were fated to become toll roads. For a longer or
shorter time the following had tolls: the San Jose-Alviso road; the Alameda; the
roads from Saratoga, Los Gatos, and Gilroy over the Santa Cruz Mountains; the
Pacheco Pass Road over the Diablo Range to the San Joaquin Valley. About
1880, however, these unpopular obstructions to traffic all had been abandoned 2),
probably also as a result of railroad competition. Toll franchises were never
established for roads on the higher situated loam soils of the valley floor. The
highway to San Francisco was originally planned as curving from Santa Clara to
the northwest mainly along the old quot;winter roadquot;, but where it crossed govern-
ment lands that had been laid out in the gridiron survey system, it was made to
follow the artificial lines of township and section (see Map IX, p. 87); this explains
why het four mile stretch west of Santa Clara had some right angles. Only the
automobile traffic of seventy years later has here compelled a reestablishment
of the wide, unbroken swing of the Camino Real.

The railroad, by its nature unsuited to the rectangular survey system of the
government, and by its construction better protected from adverse soil conditions,
followed a far straighter course, one which almost coincides with the old summer
highway. Thus, the iron road lay one to two miles north of the stage road. On
the higher lands south of San Jose the situation was different for here the rail
and highway drew closer together as they necessarily pointed to the Coyote
Narrows and vcontinued closely parallel throughout the Central Strip, along the
Bolsa rim, andquot; west into the Pajaro Gap.

It has already been pointed out (p. 73) that the stageroad, and later the main
railroad, were strong determinants in the development of settlements. In this
chapter attention may be drawn to the manner in which these lines of communi-
cation influenced the morphology of some of the new towns. Where the highway
lay at a distance, as in the northwest portion of the Valley, the railroad created
a new hne of settlements, or better, a number of points of attraction; where the
highway lay close by, the railroad only added to the importance of the existing
agglomerations. Therefore, the coming of the railroad affected the small towns
in the two sections of the Valley quite differently.

For the little town of Mountain View, which had developed on the stage
route as a local supply center, the construction of the railroad meant the death
blow. Up until then a great future had been foreseen for this town; its survey of
1865 1) shows not less than eighty-four blocks! It is an interesting feature that
though its service institutions lay along the stage road, and a railroad depot
had just been established a mile north, this town was designed as lying south
of the highway. Being on what originally was government land, it was surveyed
with north-south and east-west streets. The tentative main axis was the central
north-south street called the quot;Main Road from Foothills to R. R. Station and
Embarcadero.quot; Evidently the main streams of traffic did not disturb the planners;
but realities soon cut short their hopeful designs. Of the eighty-four blocks not
one was ever buih; the service units migrated to the focal point created by the
railroad station and there a new town developed. After being called Bay View
for a short time, it adopted the name of its predecessor, Mountain View, which
then received the significant prefix — quot;Oldquot;. The close relation between the
new town and the railroad was expressed in the plan of the streets which are
orientated to the northwest-southeast course of the railroad. The utter insignif-
icance into which the old stageroad settlement fell is evident from the fact that
a street connecting the two, though originally planned, was never made.

The town of May field was also a direct result of the establishment of a rail-
road station. The first survey of the settlement shows the gridiron streets con-
forming to the course of the railroad, and situated on both sides of it 2). The
northern portion, however, was only provisionally laid out and never developed,
but the part between the railroad and highway which run parallel here at only

Milpitas, a tiny neighborhood center, also received an impetus for growth
when the San Jose-Oakland railroad was established in the late sixties, while
in contrast the similar agglomerations of Berryessa and Evergreen, which lay
far off the new transportation route, never rose above the function of primary
supply and social center forquot; the immediate vicinity.

In the Central Section, the pre-American hamlet of San Ysidro, or Gilroy,
was in about 1850 the only cluster of habitations. As it lay off the main stage

a) Recorder\'s Office, Miscellaneous Records, Book B, p. 640, dated August 1866.

road, what business it had drifted to the traffic artery which was suddenly
quickened by the gold rush. So quot;New Gilroyquot; began. It expanded apace with the
development of farming in the region, but its position was not firmly fixed until
the arrival of the railroad, here closely paralleling the road and therefore accentuat-
ing the advantages of the site as compared with that of Old^Gilroy. The new
town spread on both sides of the highway, the eastern blocks adjoining the rail-
road tracks i). As one might expect, the street which was formed by the quot;Monterey
Roadquot;, as the former Camino Real south of San Jose was called, became the
main business street, for it lay directly opposite (west) of the railroad. During the
boom period when Gilroy was the terminus of the railroad, large business buildings
were erected on this street facing the depot, but when the line was extended to
Holhster and stagnation ensued, business departed and many buildings stood
empty 2).

North of Gilroy in the Central Section were other railroad stations, the
quot;Twelve Milequot;, quot;Fifteen Milequot;, quot;Eighteen Milequot; and quot;Twenty-one Milequot;, as they
were called; but they received little impetus to growth because the region was
sparcely settled. They had their functions as shipping places for grain and cattle
and attracted nothing more than a general merchandise store or a roadhouse.

Mountain View, Mayfield and Gilroy, though purely American products,
were not laid out according to the main points of the compass as are most western
towns. Their street systems, as seen, conformed to the direction of the railroad
which, in turn, followed the natural swing of the Valley. The foothill towns of
Saratoga and Los Gatos, originating with the mills at points where the creeks
emerge from the mountains, necessarily lay on bottom lands and each had its
main axis parallel to the southwest-northeast stream courses. These new towns,
as so many in America, were conceived in the mind of the land speculator, born
on the surveyor\'s drawing board, and registered at the recorder\'s office. Their
growth may be accredited to the fact that their locations were well selected.
Others such as Old Mountain View, New Chicago — planned in 1890 adjacent
to Alviso as a harbor city with one hundred and four blocks! —and Bethlehem,
next to Agnew in the bottomlands were never more than paper towns.

The only actual town surveyed in the classic-western way was Hollister. Yet,
this was not the outcome of a sectionized land pattern; it will be remembered that
originally this land was a Mexican r^cho which, purchased by a group of farmers,
had been apportioned into a number of farms and a tract set aside for a town.
Being established quite independently as a local community center, and having
a level site, Hollister as a matter of course was laid out north-south, east-west.
At present the town has its main street running north to south, but strangely
the alleys, instead of lying behind and parallel to this street, cut the blocks
midway at right angles. The explanation of this is to be found in the original

1)nbsp;Recorder\'s Office, Miscellaneous Records, Book C., 638; two Survey Maps of Gilroy
dated Sept.—Oct. 1867.

survey i) which shows clearly that the main axis of the town was first planned
as running not from north to south but from east to west. That the long sides
of the blocks lie in this way, with the building lots stretching from street back
to alley, is evidence to this fact. This shows that in the infant, isolated years of
Hollister the community was orientated to the west — that is, to the lower San
Benito Valley where San Juan Bautista in pre-railroad days was an important
supply center and a node for seven lines of daily stages 2). Later, in 1870, a
railway was extended to Hollister and thus communication strengthened with
the Santa Clara Valley. Gradually business moved from the east-west streets to
the main north-south street through which passed the bulk of new traffic, and so
Hollister came to face the north. San Juan Bautista, forgotten by the railroad,
fell into comparative decay.

Apart from the fact that most of the towns were laid out to conform with the
direction of the railroad and the trend of the Valley, all were surveyed in checker-
board pattern, a feature so prévalent in newly settled regions. It was the easiest
way of surveying and gave great advantage in simplifying and facilitating
descriptions and transfers of real estate, an important point in those days of
colonization when the spirit of the land speculator was present in almost every
settler.

The pre-American settlements of San Jose and Santa Clara combine in their
arrangement both Hispanic and American characteristics. The Mexican Pueblo
San Jose, situated on the east bank of the Guadelupe River, had an irregular
pattern. After California was ceded to the United States a number of building
lots in the American style of survey were adjoined to the east side of the Mexican
suertes 3). The northwest-southeast trend of the Guadelupe and Coyote Rivers
probably determined that the main streets should he parallel to them, with cross
streets at right angles. An area of approximately one mile square was surveyed,
the NW-SE streets being the widest except for one of the cross streets which was
a continuation of the principal road — the Alameda — to Santa Clara. Two
public squares were reserved, perhaps under influence of the quot;plazaquot; tradition
so prevalent in Spanish towns. Though the original pueblo was later resurveyed,
its different beginning is still discernible in the narrower and less regular streets
which lie directly east of the Guadelupe River.

The town of Santa Clara was first surveyed in 1847 on lands adjacent to
the Mission which was situated, as has been described, on a loam peninsula amidst
the adobe soils. The plaza lying before these mission buildings (to the east) was
retained and another public square laid out behind them (to the west). The new
town was probably adjusted to the Santa Clara Mission estabhshment which,
curiously enough, had approximately the northwest-southeast orientation as had
San Jose.

1) Recorder\'s Office of San Benito County, Plat-book, original, p. 8; map filed March

From early descriptions one receives Ae ^e- o^^^h ^ ^^
an appearance similar to that of Santa Uara tn g ,nbsp;settlement,

13. Apricot-drying on a slope with
southern exposure. View from a hill
just north of Hollister, looking to the
north over orchard landscape. In dis-
tance pastures of the Bolsa. Eucalyptus
trees in foreground. — July 23, 1931.

Though covering more than double the time-span of the foregoing period,
the last half century shows in the Valley\'s development one definite trend which
allows it to be considered as a unit. The change from a grain region to one highly
developed in horticulture has been the result of a number of closely interwoven
forces that, while partly present already before 1875, jmve only in the last fifty
years acted with such vigor as to create an entirely\'^ifferent landscape. This
movement toward intensive land utihzation, sketched in the preceding chapters,
continued after 1875 with ever accelerated pace. California\'s natural environment,
superior for fruit-raising over that of other parts of the United States, caused a
greater and greater percentage of the Nation\'s horticulture to concentrate in
this State. Of the utmost importance is the fact^that here no tariff walls have\'
obstructed the establishment of horticulture in the environment best suited to
its needs. The vast home market expanded with the rapid growth in population,
ti^trend to urbanization and with the rising line of average prosperity. In •
ad^tion to this increased consumption area was the market abroad, open to
preserved fruit products of a high grade quahty. In recent decades the progress in
refrigerated shipments and the opening of the Panama Canal have materially
improved the outlets for California products.

The era which will now be discussed is especially characterized by increasing
^^ value per land unit — a tendency particularly marked in the last quarter
century — and coupled with notable shifts in systems of farming. Though the
area in cultivated land actually has somewhat decreased, the total production
of the Valley has risen materially. This larger yield per unit has been achieved
by specialization in certain valuable crops and by higher standards in cultivation
methods, of which the most important is irrigation. Greater crop value per
acre made the large farm unnecessary, and the correlate(^crease in land prices
and cultivation costs made it more difficult to financeTmoreover, intensiye
management required closer attention of the grower. These factors, combined

with the increment in population, led to an all around subdivision of farm lands
into highly specialized quot;fruit ranchesquot;, thereby greatly enlarging the number of
farm units.

The increase of farm population stimulated an augmentation of services
catering to its wants. These new institutions, in addition to those connected with
preparing the crop for distributira_Jdrying, canning, packing, shipping, and
financial direction), have been an important factor in the expansion of existing
urban settlements and in the birth of new ones. As a result, the non-farming popula-
tion rapidly increased. The urbanization process has not been hmited, however,
to the added number and size of the settlements: a large part of the country side,
especially in the Northern Section, has acquired in its social-economic structure
a number of characteristics which, if not enough to stamp it as urban, at
least make it strikingly different from the rural pattern it once possessed.

Modern agriculture has obtained here the nature of a veritable open-air
industry, producing a number of standardized products. The individual farmer
is a more or less skilled worker who performs a certain specialized task in the
fruit industry, a task which differs more in degree than in principle from those
of his co-workers in town •— the canners, the packers, the shippers. He produces
practically nothing for his own consumption and depends for his daily needs on
the delivery services which supply the countryside.

The division of labor between town and country explains only in part the
close relationship between the two modes of life. Their mutual interests are
heightened and largely stimulated by the intimate contact established since the
automobile, telephone, and radio have become wide-spread. The automobile
especially has facilitated the equalization process between urban and rural modes
of life; it has given the farmer and his family easy access to town and, on the
other hand, has enlarged the residence area of the city workers. Today many
people live in the country, though engaged in non-agricultural occupations, and
many belong to the increasing group of retired people who have selected the Valley
for residence. Though in a sense country life has gained in appreciation, its form
of living has been adjusted to urban patterns. Due to improved means of communi-
cation, urban interests dominate the countryside as well as the cities. Thus,
local farmers\' communities have be6n dissolved and the farmers have made their
social and cultural affiliations in the towns. The often observed fact that the
American farmer is far more quot;loosequot; from the soil than is, for instance, the Dutch
quot;Boerquot; has hastened the social breakdown of the rural community. The majority
of old stock Americans have drifted to the towns and have been succeeded on
the farms by immigrants, especially from Southern Europe, groups which are
not readily assimilated in the American farming neighborhood. The economic
depression, which has affected the city workers most seriously, has caused a
flow back to the land; the extent of this movement is difficult to gauge and it is,
as yet, impossible to say whether it is temporary or a more permanent phenomenon.

The high cost of white labor has encouraged the employment of non-white
workers. Since the exclusion of Chinese, and later Japanese, the newcomers are
Philippines and Mexicans. The influx of the latter, very few of whom are quot;whitesquot;

is particularly great in recent years and may become a matter_of concern. They
now number in the Valley many more than there ever were in the days of the
Mexican regime and threaten to form a permanent servile class, separated from
the white population by the barrier of race. Given the prevailing American group
psychology, this element may prove detrimental to the sound social development
of this region and other parts in the southwest United States.

The vicissitudes attendant to the main crops of the Valley, as shown on
Graphs I and II (pp. 106 and 107) for Santa Clara County, clearly demonstrate
what remarkable changes have occurred in farming.

Since the extent of land in crops is, for geographic purposes, more important
than the production figures, the acreage has been used where given in the census
reports, and where not, has been estimated from the production figures. Only
after 1890 has the census recorded the number of trees and vines; since then the
terminology has varied between quot;bearing treesquot;, quot;trees of bearing agequot;, and quot;bear-
ingquot; and quot;non-bearing trees.quot; The lines on the charts have been plotted from the
figures for bearing trees and trees of bearing age as being the only satisfactory
basis for comparison. The acreage was determined by dividing the number of
trees by the average number of seventy-five trees per acre. Thus, the non-bearing
trees have not been included, nor have the non-bearing vineyards. Graph II
gives the percentage which the mentioned crops occupied of the total area classed
as quot;improved landquot; up to 1920 and of the quot;croplandquot; for 1930. This Graph also
gives only a rough estimate, partly because of the above mentioned changes in
enumeration of trees and vines and furthermore by the fact that since 1925 a
new classification in quot;cropland, pastureland and woodlandquot; has been introduced
in place of the former differentiation between quot;improvedquot; and quot;unimprovedquot;
land. Part of the area now termed as quot;plowable pasturequot; probably was earlier
reported as quot;improved land.quot; If added to the cropland figures of 1930, the
plowable pasture would increase its acreage by sixteen per cent. Considering
that the character of this quot;plowable pasturequot; is uncertain and that the new
classification will be most widely employed in statistical studies, only the quot;acreage
in croplandquot; is used here as a base for the 1930 percentages As only the statistics
for Santa Clara County are used, leaving out the Hollister Basin with the alkah
pasture lands, the percentages of Graph II are higher than would be the case for
the entire Valley.

Before entering upon a more detailed discussion of the changes in agricultural
production, a table may be given which reviews the present situation (1930)
as to type of production units

Actually the crop figures of the census refer to 1929, and thus back by decades. The
year 1930, 1920, etc.— to 1860 are meant, here only as a general indication, because the
population figures refer to the round numbers.

a) This table is based upon the United States Census of Agriculture 1930, third series,
quot;Type of Farm.quot; In this bulletin farms have been classified according to their main source of

6,087
39
4

141
4,520

14
54
352 _
23
301
150

The dechne of wheat acreage since 1870 i) is very pronounced, as shown
on Graph I. This drop was not paralleled by barley, the acreage of which continued
to rise until 1900 when it began to fall rapidly. The hay industry continued to
develop during the eighties and nineties, though at a slower rate than in the
preceding decades. Besides supplying the local demand, it provided horse feed
in considerable amounts for the Bay cities. Hay shipments to the Eastern States

income (40 per cent or more of the total value of all products of the farm). General farms:
those where the value of products from any source was less than 40 per cent of the total
value of all farm products. Crop-specialty farms: those with sugar beets, peas, beans, hay,
potatoes, or other minor field crops. Animal-specialty farms: those with all classes of beef
cattle, sheep, hogs, etc., with emphasis on the production of crops and feeding of livestock;
a i/ocAyflwcA\'is characterized by production of livestock by grazing. Self-sufficing farms:
those where the value of farm products used by the operator\'s family was 50 per cent or
more of the total of all farm products. Abnormal farms: classified farms owned or operated by
institutions, or as part time farms (where the operator spent 150 days or more off the farm
in other than farm work or reported an occupation other than farmer, provided the value
of the products did not exceed S750), or for boarding and lodging (where receipt from these
sources represented 50 per cent or more of the total value of all products and receipts of the
farm) or as horse farms (production of horses or mules), or as feed lots. The frmt farms:
those with small fruits, tree fruits, nuts, grapes. The other types of farming mentioned seem
not to need any special explanation. It may be repeated here that the figures represent
type of farms, and not the only products. This explains, for instance, the high value of all
products per acre of the quot;poultry typequot; — far higher than the corresponding figure ($ 282)
for Sonoma County (Petaluma. quot;the egg-basket of the worldquot;!) as ofteii in the Santa Clara
Valley chicken raising is combined with orcharding, vegetable growing, etc.).

1) Actually the highest mark was reached in 1874, according to assessor\'s figures. See p. 64.

were and are impracticable because of the prohibitive freight rates over the
mountains. As the horse was replaced by automobile and tractor, the market
decreased. In 1910 the number of horses in Santa Clara County was 15,816;
in 1920 it had fallen to 10,305 and continued to drop until 1930 when there
were but 5,204, approximately one third of the first figure. Estimating that each
horse consumes about two tons of grain hay per year i), 21,224 tons less are needed
now in the region than twenty years agogt;which means that by this reason alone
15,000 acres have been released for other purposes. Moreover, the hay lands have
been considerably hmited by the spread of horticulture; in the last twenty
years hay and forage acreage has thus decreased. over 50,000 acres.

This reduction in hay acreage was partly offset by the increased production
per acre. Though hay and forage crops in 1930 were about the same acreage as in
\'1870, the total production was nearly 36 per cent higher than that of sixty
years before. This was in the main a result of the acceptance and wide use of
alfalfa as a feed crop. To illustrate how slowly the farmers recognized the value of
alfalfa, it may be noted that in 1900 Santa Clara County had 721 acres in alfalfa;
in the following decades, however, the area expanded rapidly until in 1930 it
occupied 8,798 acres, 28 per cent of the total crops in hay and forage, forming
54 per cent of the total tonnage. The raising of small grains to be cut green for
hay diminished from 82,913 acres in 1900 to 17,518 in 1930. Thus, while decreasing
in the absolute sense, the hay industry followed the trend of horticulture and
truck farming in shifting from extensive to intensive production. As the raising
of beef cattle declined, after a slight gain about 1900, the locally grown hay and
forage crops were and are mainly used by the dairy industry. The beef cattle,
which in 1920 numbered 8,059, by 1930 had decreased to 5 527 and are now
practically restricted to the mountain range lands. The natural grasses are supple-
mented by feed either grown on the ranch or purchased. Of the 54 stock ranches
listed for the County in 1930, only 34 reported expenditures for feed, with an
average of $733 per ranch; of the 196 dairy farms listed, 188 reported expenditures
for feed, with an average of $4,690 per farm — this in addition to their own con-
siderable hay production.

About 1875 dairying in the Santa Clara Valley was still in its infant years,
as has been previously described (p. 81); mechanical dairy equipment was absent
and even milking barns were very few i). In the eighties dairying began to develop
in the Interior Valley of California, stimulated by the success of alfalfa on irrigated
lands and by the introduction of technical improvements. The Bay Districts,
however, were slow in following the new lines. Because of the various classifications
of cattle in census reports, it is difficult to obtain a clear picture of the fortunes
of the dairy industry. Nevertheless, it seems that it was as late as 1900 before
dairying in the Santa Clara Valley began to show an appreciable revival after

its period of stag-
nation since 1880.
In 1900 there were
7,380 dairy cows in
Santa Clara County,

years later thequot;cows
and heifers kept
mainly for milk pro-
ductionquot; numbered
almost the same —
12,172. Apparently
the dairy industry
has barely kept its
own against the
land-conquering or-
chards and truck
farms. The manu-
facture of butter
and cheese on the
dairy farms has
today practically
ceased, the product

being the whole milk which is sold mostly to creameries m adjacent cities^ In
Mroy and Hollister Districts - farther away ron. urban regions - part
of the milk is still used for cheese-making in some local plants.

Graph I shows that the acreage in vineyards rose until 1900, declined during
the following two decades, and held nearly to its level in the last ten years^ In
percentage of improved land the present total area of vineyards is lowest of all
important individual crops, but in the economy of the Valley viticulture has
played an important part, and in the landscape the vegetational character o
^^he vines still forms a very noticable element. Considering this, the vicissitudes
of viticulture must be sketched here at some length 2).

Where no surface measures were reported they have been estimated as follows.
Wheat acreage for 1860 and 1870 at a yield of 20 bu. per acre.

Barley quot; quot; quot; quot; quot; quot; quot; quot; quot; ^^ \'\'
Hay and forage quot; quot; quot; quot; quot;quot; quot; quot;
Prunes and apricots at an average of 75 trees per acre.
Grapevinesnbsp;quot; quot; quot; quot; 450 vines quot; quot;

Most varieties grown here are wine grapes, very few table grapes, and none raism-

It will be recalled
(p. 69) that unfa-
vorable jnark^ing
conditions caused a
serious depression
in the grape indus-
try. About 1880 the
tide turned quot;when
the havoc carried
by the phylloxera
into the European
vineyards created
a panic as to future
suppliesquot;. During
the seventies Euro-
pean vines had been
imported with suc-
cess to CaHfornia

and this, coupled |
with the threat- ^
ening shortage, led yearsis^
to a closer consid-
eration of her wine
products. Thus, the
economic situation

broadened the market for California wines in the Eastern States, and even
brought about some shipments to Europe 2). Innbsp;vineyards totaled 1,451

acres, of which nine tenths were in full bearing. Due to the bright market pros-
pects there was considerable planting in the eighties. The Zinfandel, a Hungar-
i^ grape, had been extensively propagated in the seventies, but its product
was a very common wine, decidedly inferior to the French commercial wines
and only found a ready outlet among the immigrants originating from
Southern and Eastern Europe. It became understood that competitionjwith
France could only succeed by importing the French grape vinesjjhus, many
of the new plantings during the eighties consisted of red and white Bordeaux
varieties.

Report of lecture by E. W. Hilgard, in Annual Report of the Board of Viticultural
Commissioners 1880 p. 58. The phylloxera had been found at this time in the Sacramento
Valley, and in Napa and Sonoma Counties north of the Bay; the pest had not yet invaded the
Santa Clara Valley. (The first annual report (1880) of the Viticultural Commissioner contains
a map showing the extension of vineyards and spots affected by phylloxera).

2) A. Haraszthy in: Report on the Sixth Annual State Viticultural Convention,
San Francisco 1888, 10 ff. See bibliography under quot;Annual Reports.quot;

to that of Medoc, for it also lies between two large bodies of water which have a
great tempering influence on the climate, making it admirably suited to the
cultivation of these French wines. Moreover, the gravelly loams of the foothills
on the quot;Westsidequot; proved excellent and became the centerTof grape culture in
the Valley^ The Mission Grape, originally introduced by the Spanish, comprised
in 1880 not more than half of the total grapevine acreage of the Santa Clara
Valley i). Gradually this variety was pushed out entirely by the new ones imported
from the Provence and from the Swiss Jura 2). The French influence on the
methods of cultivation and handling the product was dominant. Every annual
report of the Viticultural Board of these times is full of quotations and translations
of French authors.

For some time it looked as if viticulture were destined to become the successor
to wheat as the first ranking product of the Valley, but in spite of its seemingly
favorable future, several factors worked to make it lose its paramount place by
1890. First, the cultivation of the high quality wine grapes required far more care
and a higher investment than most farmers could afford, the crop returns
were smaller and the wine needed more time to mature. The wine dealers, accus-
tomed to the cheap Zinfandel wines were adverse to carrying stocks for several
years, a burden that involved far more costs for cooperage, greater care, and no
assured return for accrued rents .

Though Californian viticulture enjoyed the advantages of a natural environ-
ment similar to that of European wine regions, it was not backed by their centuries
of social heritage and experience. Furthermore, it had to find its chief market
among the American public which, save for the wealthier classes and for the im-
migr^ts from Germany and South Europe, lacked entirely the tradition of wine
.quot;drinking. In respect to soil and chmate, viticulture was further liihited by direct
competition with several deciduous fruits, as prunes and aprkots. The cultivation
of these fruits required less skill and their pireparation forlnarket was far easier
than that of the wine grapes. As the phylloxera difficulties in Europe were grad-
ually overcome by the planting of resistant vines, markets abroad as well as in
the Eastern States closed or became greatly restricted to the Cahfomia product.
About 1890, therefore, the limited market became again overstocked, and the
planting of wine grapes was almost totally suspended. In 1884 grapes commanded
$25 per ton at the wineries — in 1893 only $8 The great blow came in the
years 1898—1901 when phylloxera invaded the Valley, destroying a large number
of vines. In 1882 affected vines had already been discovered on three locations
in the Santa Clara Valley east of San Jose ^). In 1894 phylloxera was reported
in all the Bay Counties, though damage was still small. It was expected at that
date that quot;many thousands of acres will be destroyed during the next five or six
years. A few resistant vines are being planted, but the total amount is not very

great. As no new vineyards are being planted, the phylloxera will be the cause of
a great decrease in the output of wine during the next few years This prophecy
was fulfilled exactly, though it seems that other causes, such as the deficiency
of rainfall during the years 1897 to 1900, the kind of soil, age of vine, and culti-
vation methods, were contributing factors to the ravages done to the vineyards 2).
A large number of vines were pulled out and part of the land planted in fruit
trees. Thus, the one time renown wine belt began to be changed about 1900 to
the dense fruit tree forest of today. Though there was some replanting with
resistant stocks of grapes, these new varieties proved more difficult to handle
than the older ones. The waning grape cultivation received a new blow with
the coming of prohibition. The first result was the uprooting of vineyards, repla-
cing them by orchards. Yet soon there appeared to be a remarkably eager demand
for quot;grape juicequot;, and prices for the wine grape, now renamed the quot;juice grapequot;,
began to soar to ten and fifteen times normal. Even some new plantings were
made on lands not yet in orchards; about 1928 the market was again overstocked,
and prices fell to below production cost. Since then, the industry has suffered
stagnation and, though efforts are being made to establish more effective market-
ing organizations in order to find outlet for the surplus, there is again a slight
regression.

The relative unimportance of orchards as a special type of land utilization
.up to 1890 is apparent from the fact that the Ninth Census was the first to
enumerate the fruit trees. The acreage curves for fruit and nut trees on Graph I
;(p. 10.6) could be given, therefore, only for the period beginning in 1890. Not
to crowd.the charts, just the acreage for prunes and apircots were plotted individ-
ually and, in addition, the combined acreage of all deciduous fruit and nut
trees. The total area in fruits (and to some extent in nuts) shows a phenomenal
expansion. In 1890 orchards covered an area equal approximately to that of
wheat, each about 19,000 acres. Forty years later they had jumped to 103,000
acres, while wheat had dwindled to almost nothing. In 1890 orchards covered only
10 per. cent of the quot;improved landquot;; in 1930 they occupied 65 per cent of the
quot;cropland.quot; The expansion, however, has not been steady: during the nineties
there was a large increase, then a halt and a slight reduction during the first
decade of the new century. Following this came again a growth, continued in
the twenties at a quickened pace. Of course, this development of the fruit industry
in the Santa Clara Valley forms only part of that in California; as such, its charac-
ter has much in common with that: of the -entire region.

The natural basis for the concentration of horticulture in California Ues in
the climate with its mild-winters, its long growing Season, and its abundance
of sunlight, conditions ideal for fruits and nuts if insufficient rainfall is eventually
supplemented by irrigation. Local differences in climate and soils create a variety

of environments, each of which is more or less suited for certain kinds of crops.
Not hampered by tariff walls or centuries of tradition, the cultivation of each
individual product tends to concentrate in the region to which it is best fitted.
The more specific the required qualifications for a first grade commercial product,
the more circumscribed becomes its natural environment and thus the stronger
its potential power in pushing out crops that compete with it i,n the use of the
land. Other factors, such as specific crop value and marketing possibilities, also
play a large role and sometimes prevent the location of a crop in its ideal environ-
ment.

The dynamic nature of horticulture in California is indicative of its youth:
variable productions and rapid shifts in area characterize all crops. Successful
trials are quickly imitated in the vicinity, and the popularity of a new enterprise
often leads to the disappearance of its precursors and to a severe contraction of
its area elsewhere. Profitable prices result in large scale and excessive plantings
and an overreaching of the demand, followed by a period of low prices and stag-
nation necessitating a readjustment before the cycle can be repeated. It may be
noted that in an orchard region the recurrent disparity between market and
production finds a more violent repercussion in the economic situation than in
geographic, or landscape, sense. When fruit trees are planted in response
to favorable prices, it takes several years before they begin bearing, in which
interval new orchards are added. When finally the increment in production causes
a surplus, the process of orchards coming into bearing still continues though
planting may have entirely halted. Thus, contrasting with annual crops where
changes in acreage can be made yearly, the orchards involve large investments
and impel the owners to quot;hang onquot; in hope of a change for the better, even while
prices are below production costs. Though well pronounced in cycles of several
years, the changes in an orchard landscape are far less abrupt than those in a
region where the majority of crops are annuals.

The larger part of California\'s produce is destined to supply the United
States home market, but dried prunes, canned and dried apricots, peaches and
pears command a large market abroad. At present California\'s only competitor
in the United States for the production of preserved fruits of the temperate zone
varieties is the Pacific Northwest. California has the advantage that her fr-esh
fruits are mostly on the market before those of Washington and Oregon. Georgia
and Texas compete in peaches. In respect to walnuts, almonds, and cherries of
the maraschino variety, to mention those of interest to the Santa Clara Valley,
California has still to cope with imports from Europe. Besides, California fruits
and nuts contend also among themselves: though there seems to have been a
slight rise of fruit consumption in the United States, the increased sale of one kind,
be it because of low price, or because of high pressure advertising, tends to
lessen the use of the others.

The factors determining the growth of the orchard industry in the Santa
Clara Valley, as has just been outlined, will now be supplemented with a short
review of the chief individual fruits in their present status,

times, increased to some extent until 1900. Overplanting in the State and the
development of the apple cultivation in the Northwest, where climatic conditions
better favor its development, led to a heavy decline in California. In 1930
apple trees covered only about 1,500 acres in the Santa Clara Valley, only a
small acreage of them being non-bearing.

Cherries do well in the Valley if located on favorable soils. For a time their
cultivation was replaced by that of prunes, but in recent years profitable prices
have resulted in large plantings. In 1930 there were 127,880 bearing trees, and
about half as many non-bearing, which indicates a renewed interest in cherry
growing. Among the counties of California, Santa Clara ranks second in the
number of cherry trees.

The growing of peaches and nectarines, the latter forming only a very limited
share of the group, spread rapidly in the nineties, but since then has steadily
fallen in acreage for the reason that it can not compete with the product from
the hotter climate of the Interior Valley and with the increasing output of the
Southeastern States. At present the number of bearing trees in Santa Clara
County (122,788 in 1930) is but slightly more than one fifth of the number
in 1900 and covers only about 1650 acres.

The pear orchards, after a period of decline between 1900 and 1910, have
been extended considerably so that now Santa Clara County ranks third among
the California counties in the number of bearing trees, the first counties being
Placer and Sacramento in the Interior Valley. There were 610,383 bearing trees
in 1930, an increase of 321 per cent over 1910, and there are still 233,847 trees
non-bearing, which shows that the expansion is yet in progress. Compared with
the large number of trees, the farms producing pears are surprisingly few, totaling
only 909, or 18 per cent of all the farms reporting fruit trees. This is an effect of the
pear trees being restricted to certain areas, as will be shown in the discussion of
the landscape. About half of the produce is sold fresh to the Eastern States, some
is consumed locally, some dried, and the rest, mostly of the Bartlett variety,
canned. The rapid increase in production in this region, as elsewhere in California,
has caused prices for pears to decline greatly since 1921.

Among the deciduous fruits of the Valley, the a\'^ricot and PmM are the most
-dominant, with the latter leading by far. While Santa Clara County ranks second
among the counties of the State in the acreage of pears and cherries, it keeps first
rank for prunes and apricots. The apricot is the only fruit of the County the
cultivation of which has steadil^_grown.d«ring_the-last forty years, though the
expansion was less notable in the first decade of the present century. Taking
seventy-five trees as the average per acre, the land occupied by bearing apricots
has extended from 3,507 acres in 1890 to 18,244 in 1930, an accretion of 421 per
cent. In addition to this bearing acreage, an area equal to about one fifth of this
new acreage is in non-bearing trees. Apricots are widely grown, more than half
of the fruit farms reporting them. The acreage for this fruit covers now about
eleven per cent of the County cropland. The bulk of the production is used for
canning and the remainder is dried, or sold fresh to the local market. Increasing
shipments of early varieties are sent to the Eastern States.

The prune is the most important product of the Valley. The chmate, combined
with high grade cultivation methods, has produced a prune with high sugar
content, clear amber meat, thin skin and fine color. The qualities of the dried
fruit of the quot;Santa Clara Gradequot; are recognized as having conquered the highest
place on the market and are at the base of the remarkable development of this
industry which has set its mark on the present landscape. 1886 is stated as the /
year when the success of the dried prune was established in New York. Competi-/^
tion with import from Bosnia, Serbia and France was severe until 1895 when
protective duties were set up prohibiting imports from abroad. Prune acreage
in the Santa Clara Valley expanded rapidly in the nineties and first years of the
twentieth century, resulting in an overproduction which checked further plant-
ings. From 1902 until the end of the World War the number of trees somewhat
decreased. When the bottom dropped out of the prices for agricultural staples
immediately after the War, the prices for prunes, as for most fruits, remained
at a relatively high (and more profitable) level, encouraging a renewal of plantings^).
Between 1920 and 1930 the number of bearing trees in Santa Clara County
increased by 58 per cent to 5,326,074. In addition to the bearing trees were
those non-bearing which, according to the 1930 Census, were equal to 13
per cent of the bearing acreage. This last percentage is not high and well
below the non-bearing acreage of the prune districts in the Sacramento Valley r
and in the region north of the Bay. This seems to indicate that the prune culti- ]
vation in the Santa Clara Valley is reaching its saturation point.

How widespread prune raising is in Santa Clara County appears from the
fact that of the 4,971 farms reporting orchards, 83_ge£^nt of them raise prunes.
Practically the entire crop is dried and finds a market in the United States as
well as in Europe where it competes with the lower priced but usually inferior
products of Jugo-Slavia and France. In recent years California has contributed
to the international trade fifty-five_£ercent, Jugo-Slavia thirty-four percent,
the Pacific Northwest seven per cent, and France four per cent 2). As the Santa
Clara Valley contains about forty-two percent of the State acreage, it may be
estimated that the export of Santa Clara dried prunes comprises about one fourth
of the world\'s trade.

At present the industry is in its second production cycle since the beginning
of the century. Again the planting has been overdone in relation to the consump-
tion and the result is a decidedly unsatisfactory situation, of special significance
as prune growing is the chief industry of the Valley. A readjustment seems
necessary before prune growing can again be placed on a profitable basis.

The great distance from the Santa Clara Valley to her markets compels the
preservation of the larger part of the fruit produce. Generally speaking, this is
done by canning as well as by drying. In the early days of horticulture, fruits were

often dried in artificially heated dryers (dehydrators), but the inefficient process
and the low quality of the product soon caused this practice to be displaced by
natural drying. At the base of sun-drying being a success in the Valley is the
climate with its long, dry and warm summers — conditions almost ideal for this
purpose. In recent times, however, artificial drying on far improved principles
has come back and an increasing part of the production is thus dried. This process
is on the whole more economical, for it eliminates risks of rain damage, provides
even drying, shortens the drying season from about twelve days to one, and sets
free the drying yard area for the planting of additional trees. Besides, it protects
the crop from windblown dust, especially since heavy automobile traffic has
come into such importance.

Though crop value per acre has greatly increased, a proportional rise
in efficiency of production has been checked by the heavy investments and
the higher cultivation, manufacturing and marketing costs involved. In many
cases, the output, measured in terms of total investment, may lie even on a
lower level than in a former period. This is particularly true of many
orchards planted during the last fruit boom on lands economically marginal
in character, situated in unirrigable areas, or largely consisting of unsuitable
soils. Fruit growing here requires the same outlay per acre, if not more, than
does that on good lands. Though seemingly cheaply produced, the yield from
the unirrigated lands is irregular, and only in wet years reaches a high grade
and thus a good price. Part of the orchards which need only irrigation to make
them profitable — assuming a normal market — could be benefited by the
execution of irrigation works (see p. 120). Except for those on deep, retentive
soils, the non-irrigable orchards should be abandoned; the same is true of those
on unfavorable soils. Though it is probable that there will be a gradual drift away
from these marginal orchard lands, a factor hampering the natural readjustment
of the economic situation is the relatively large group of people who have settled
in thé Valley because of its attractive country life, and for whom fruit growing is
a side line or merely a subsidiary means of income (see p. 126).

Another industry in which there has been a rapid expansion is the growing
of vegetables and seeds. As has been described (p. 69), the Santa Clara Valley
early became one of the most prominent districts in the State for truck farming;
by 1875 seed production began to be developed, the first fields laid out by a seed
grower from Rochester, New York, who had come to California, as so many
others, for his health and had chosen the culturally advanced Santa Clara Valley
as his home. The equable climate, with its long and intense solar insolation
and with its lack of i^m in summer, gives a higher germination of the seed than
that of the east, and the absence of strong winds — at lèast away from the Bay
borderlands — guarantees a greater and more certain production. The notable
successes of seed growing in the Valley soon drew the attention of other parts
of the United States and it was not long until several firms were established in
the Santa Clara Region.

About 1875 there were ten acres in seed, mostly onion; in 1930 the area listed
for vegetable and flower seeds in Santa Clara County was 441 acres, planted
mostly to onion, lettuce, radish, carrot, and parsley, and forming the bulk of
the world\'s production. In addition, there are large tracts in the part of the Valley
which lies in San Benito County.

Many times the grower does not decide by the planting whether the crop
shall be marketed as vegetables or as seed. Thus, truck farming is often closely
allied with the raising of seed. Vegetables are also often grown as an intercrop
in young orchards, fc^ the young fruit trees do not need all the space in the rows
between them; thereby an income can be obtained from truck production during
the interval before the trees begin to bear. Often spinach, lettuce, string beans,
and strawberries are planted in this way; also tomatoes, though their planting
in orchards is decreasing on account of certain tree diseases which seem to come
in after their cultivation.

Most of the total vegetable crop, however, is grown on special truck farms
(compare with table on p. 104) In 1900 the acreage in vegetables was 1,787; in
1910 it had grown to 4,241; in 1920 it was 8,917; by 1930 it had increased to
12,577. These products directly supply the cities of the Bay Region and also
form shipments in great quantities to the East, the early vegetables finding a
market before those in the East are ready.

! Nearly half of the acreage in vegetables is planted in tomatoes, the Santa
Clara Valley being one of the oldest and most important tomat(gt;raising districts
of the West. Canneries over the entire Valley offer easy outlet for the product,
which is prepared in a variety of ways — as whole tomatoes, sauces, catsup, puree,
etc. Besides intercropping in young orchards, the tomatoes are often grown in
rotation with a winter crop of spmach; they are also planted after several years
of alfalfa before the land is again given to the former crop.

Peas are second in acreage and occupy 1,542 acres. Like tomatoes, this crop
has not expanded greatly since 1920 as compared with that of other vegetables.
For instance, spinach, planted in 1920 to only 87 acres, now ranks close to peas
with 1,445 acres.^Cauliflower fields in ten years have spread from 25 to 488 acres.
Snap and string beans, sweet corn, lettuce, celery, cucumbers, — leaving out
crops of less than one hundred acres — all doubled, or more than doubled, in
acreage in the last decades. Only the plantings of onions for drying purposes fell
off considerably.

Truck farming is done mostly by Orientals, though Portuguese form a notable
group. Seed growing also has a predominance of oriental labor, caused by the
exacting nature of the industry and by the high cost of white labor.quot; Usually
Japanese do the work under contract with the seed firms. The latter determine
the varieties to be grown, furnish the seed, and closely supervise planting, culti- .
vation, and harvesting. Berry growing is almost exclusively in the hands of the
Japanese. Strawberries and raspberries are the most prominent of these products,
occupying 90 per cent of the 865 acres in berries in 1930, the rest of the acreage
being in blackberries and loganberries.

It has been seen i) how the early American interest for irrigation waned as
improper technique led to disappointments. Once it became estabhshed that the
amount of precipitation in the Valley is usually sufficient for horticulture - pro-
vided intensive tillage - irrigation even came to be judged as an quot;unnatural
proceedingquot;, and crops grown by rainfall alone were considered superior in quahty
to irrigated products.

Little is known about the status of irrigation in the Santa Clara Valley during
the seventies and eighties save that it was very little practised. The first definite
figures date from the Eleventh Census 2). It is reported that in 1890 there were
460 flowing wells on farms in Santa Clara County, averaging a depth of 280 feet.
It is further stated that many wells flowed only during rainy season and that
their main purpose was for watering stock,Ihough quot;in many instances strawberries
and vegetables are irrigated.quot; These facts show that irrigation was still in its infant
stage. Apparently the use of ground water was practically limited to flowing
wells (if they flowed), the artesian areas being near the Bay and south of Gilroy.

Obviously, the application of well water to orchards was negligible. Yet,
to a small extent, irrigation for fruit trees existed in the use of the ilood waters
of some creeks\' As early as 1857 a ditch had been made to divert water from the
Los Gatos Creek. In the eighties two more ditches were constructed to tap water
from some of the other creeks which enter the Valley from the northeast side of
the Santa Cruz Range The use of the seasonal flood water shows that at the
time irrigation of fruit trees meant nearly always winter irrigation and was
practiced only by orchardists who could avail themselves easily of the creek
water. The other growers had to depend on cultivation alone, but they did so
without much jealousy inasmuch as the belief was still prevalent that irrigation
was unnecessary. This sentiment was fostered by real estate men and others who
desired to create the impression that the land they had for sale did not need
irj(-igation *).

Meanwhile, in the drier parts of the State, better conceptions had developed
about the methods of irrigation; moreover, experience proved that more certain
and better crops could be produced through its use. It was found that - contrary
to the Spanish ideas in irrigation - the application of water did not do away with
tillage, but made necessary even more frequent cultivation of the soil. Recent
investigations point to the conclusion that the common behef that the surface
mulch is a check on evaporation is untenable, and that the chief value of

1)nbsp;See p. 82. This study does not pretend to give an elaborate history of irrigation in
the Santa Clara Valley.

2)nbsp;Report on Agriculture by Irrigation in the Western Part of the United States at the
Eleventh Census (1890), 79—80.

5)nbsp;F. J. Veihmeyer and A. H. Hendrickson; contains a bibliography on this subject.

cultivation lies in the removal of weed competition. Nevertheless, those who
based their intensive soil cultivation of irrigated orchards on the theory of
prevention of evaporation reaped the benefits of their work, though the stirring
was often overdone. Another point estabhshed was that, apart from the various
water requirements of different crops, the character of the soil - as to texture,
structure, uniformity, and depth - should determine the frequency of irrigation-.

With improvements in packing, canning, and marketing processes came
higher commercial standards for fruits. Competition and larger investments in
land and cultivation were other factors impelling the production of finer grade
and more certain crops. This intensification process was experienced also in the
dairying industry where the need for high productive forage crops augmented the ,
spread of alfalfa plantings, and thereby necessitated the appHcation of water to/
these lands.nbsp;\'

The change in attitude toward irrigation came in the Santa Clara Valley the
latter half of the nineties. The year 1897—\'98 had scarcely more than half the
normal rainfall, and the two following years had only 85 % of normal (see graph
p. 120). As this period of drought renewed the interest for irrigation, the number
of ditches and laterals on the west side of the Northern Section was greatly
expanded in order to utilize as much as possible the floodwaters of the creeks. In
additian, quite a number of wells were drilled and pumping plants installed in
those orchards where gravity water was not available. The flowing wells in the
artesian belt, besides being often dry in summer, were of little avail to orchardists,
as artesion conditions existed only in the bottomlands, regions unfitted to most
fruit trees. The technique of well drilhng had been greatly improved by that time.
According to the Twelfth Census, the number of irrigators increased from 184 in
1889 to 1,128 in 1899. The acreage irrigated in 1899 was 40,097 acres, approxi-
mately six times that of ten years earlier. As about 12,000 of these acres were by
1899 provided with creek water, the other 28,000 acres seem to have been irri-
gated from wells. About 1905 the practice of winter irrigation by gravity ditches
covered from 12,000 to 14,000 acres. The irrigated acreage by source of water
supply as reported for Santa Clara County by the 1910 Census was as follows:

Compared with a decade before, the total acreage of irrigated lands had decreased

with six per cent. Though the factors that brought about this reduction in irri-
gation are not definitely known, in all probability a large part of it may be
attributed to the stagnant conditions of the deciduous fruit industry during this
period, which caused many farmers to economize on the use of water. That it was
the result of a small run-off seems unlikely, for in 1909—1910 the precipitation
was only eight per cent below normal whereas ten years previously it had been
fifteen per cent below normal .

Though apphcation of water at times of flood was without doubt a very
cheap method, it had distinct disadvantages. After a dry winter, early spring
irrigation has decided value, but at such a time the creeks have naturally only a
small and intermittent flow. After a rainy winter, the soil is filled with water to
its field capacity and the need for flooding is much less; if the orchardist irrigates
in spite of this, the added water is simply a surplus which has to drain off. During
the summer the streams have no water to replace that which the trees take from
the soil. Wells, on the other hand, permit the apphcation of water when most
necessary, which is especially the case in summer. The wet year of 1907 followed
by a dry year of 1908 emphasized the hazards of winter irrigation and prompted
many farmers to resort to the drilhng of wells. Moreover, the company which
supplied electric power placed a minimum charge on electric plants, thus inducing
the farmers to use their pumps to as great an extent as possible 2). Thus, those
who formerly relied partly on gravity irrigation had more reason than ever to
turn to the use of well water. The highest point of the gravity irrigation practice was
marked in 1910; thereafter, for reasons mentioned, the system of irrigation from
streams was gradually superseded by that of well irrigation®). At present not
more than a few thousand acres are irrigated from the creeks, if water is available.

The augmenting use of ground water was soon felt. Already in 1912 and 1913,
when the precipitation was far below normal, there rose anxiety because of the
decided drop of the ground water table. After the World War, orchards and
truck farms expanded rapidly, and the draft upon the ground water resources
rose even more than proportionally. The growing use of irrigation in the Valley
may be seen from the following table:

In 1910 there were 458 main ditches with total length of 228 miles; in 1920 there were
26 ditches with total length of 30 miles. The number of pumped wells increased from 800
in 1910 to 2,159 in 1920.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF IRRIGATION IN SANTA CLARA COUNTY
Approximate Area of Santa Clara County: 849.920 Acres.

The ever increasing draft on the ground water during the last fifteen years
has been coincident with a period in which the precipitation averaged well below
normal Graph III shows the deviation from the average mean precipitation of the
regl since\'lSSl. The abnormally low average of rainfall during the last fi teen

if no measures are taken to conserve moisture where possible^ The a arming de-
pletion of the ground water and its effects may be illustrated by a few figures.
In 1910 there were, according to the Census, 43^6 flowing wells in Santa Clara
County, nearly all of them in the area north and east of the main San Jose.-San
Francisco Railroad line; in 1920 there remained only 80 of these wells; in 1930
practically all had stopped flowing. The same conditions are developing in other
parts of the Valley. In the nineties, farmers in the Holhster Basm ^sed water of
the San Benito River by storing the winter floods in a reservoir m the hills and
in the summer releasing the water to a channel and divertion canals. As the system
proved unrehable, more and more land owners turned to well irrigation, so that
Lw gravity irrigation is comparatively little pracUced. In 19 6 the average
lift for irrigation wells outside the so-called artesian belt was 35 feet; in 1924 i
was over 60 feet. In the last seven years it has continued to drop, though to what

-n It is not possible to present the number of irrigated farms in 1930 as the Census

reports only the number of irrigation enterprises, which include farms that - besides provid-
S for thei^ own supply - sell water to other properties. In 1920 there were 1 561 imga^on
enterprises; in 1930 there were 2,195, an increase of 37 per cent, a figure about equal to that
for the increase in irrigated land.

extent is unknown. Within the artesian belt, wells had by 1924 ceased to give
sufficient discharge for irrigation use, and by now have entirely stopped flowing i).
This fact certainly has been accentuated by the prolonged dry period of the last
fifteen years, but the expanding acreage in fruit, vegetables, and alfalfa gives
reason for appl^^hension concerning the future water supply. In a certain sense
the Southern Basin has an advantage in that its center, because of the alkali
content, is unfit for intensive agricultural use; therefore, the amount of ground
water available for its borderlands is relatively higher than otherwise would be
the case. On the other hand, the supply from the encircling watersheds is small
when compared with those of the Bay Region. Until so far, no definite plan has been
accepted for water conservation. It seems, however, that by a system of detention
reservoirs and spreading grounds the present as well as future agricultural needs
of the Southern Section would find a sufficient water supply from the San Benito
River and from the Pacheco Creek which comes into the Valley from the east side.

Of the entire Valley the situation is most acute in the Northern Section,
especially since here the most intensive development of horticulture has taken
place, and thus here the largest investments are at stake. The ground water which
in 1915 averaged a depth of 33.4 feet, fell by 1930 to 97.9 feet, and only one year
later to 109 feet. This means that during this sixteen year period, the ground water
level dropped at the average rate of 4.8 feet per year 1

The greatest water depletioh|\' has occurred on the west side of the Bay
Region near Campbell where the wells have dropped 115 feet and more since 1915.
The entire area south of the Mayfield-San Jose Railroad, and east of the line San
Jose-Milpitas, has experienced drops between 50 and 100 feet. This steady
lowering of the water level means an ever increasing expense for deepening and
casing wells, for enlarging pumping plants, and for additional electric power. It
is stated that it takes now about fifteen times as much power to lift the water as
it did fifteen years ago 3). The average depth of weils in 1915 was 200 feet, in
1931 - 400 feet. Since the extra 200 feet costs about $ 1100 to drill and case,
ultimately, and not far in the future, the pumping costs will be prohibitive for
water use. Unless measures are taken to prevent further sinking of the ground
water, large sections of the Valley wilj have to be abandoned to less intensive
forms of agriculture.

Inasmuch as the creeks are now practically unused for irrigation, most of
their flow during the rainy season is lost in San Francisco Bay. Only that moisture
is saved which is absorbed by the gravelbeds at the higher parts of the fans and
percolates into the bodies of gravel and sand, the remains of ancient stream
channels, that lie as a network system of water mains under the entire Valley.
The amount of water being thus transferred to these sub-surface reservoirs is
estimated at 38 per cent of the total drainage from the watersheds surrounding
the Valley; the remaining 62 per cent flows as waste to the Bay

ANNUAL VARIATION OF PRECIPITATION IN SANTA CLARA REGION, 1881—19301);
and DEPTH TO AVERAGE GROUNDWATER LEVEL IN NORTHERN SECTION,

70
80
50
40

10%
•f

10%
20
30
40
50
60
70

In the use of its water resources the population of the Santa Clara Valley
has shown an attitude kindred to that which its predecessors had towards the soil;
I while the latter mined the soil, the present generation quot;minesquot; the water. That the
community is beginning to come of age in its understanding of the invaluable
benefits to be derived by a planned and efficient use of its water resources is
indicated by several recent moves towards water conservation. Though an associa-
tion of farmers in 1926 started on a small scale the saving of water by the con-
struction of dams on the Los Gatos and Guadelupe, their purpose being to retain
the flood waters for absorption into the underground reservoirs, this piecern^l
work could not solve the increasingly serious situation. Finally in 1929 a Water
Conservation District was established, which in 1931 received power to vote
bonds or special assessments, a right which enables the District to invest money
for the so necessary large scale conservation of water. A consulting engineer was
engaged to make a project for water salvage, but when the report was presented

1) The averages of regional precipitation were computed from the records of San
Jose, Los Gatos, Gilroy, Lick Observatory, and Morgan Hill. The average water levels are
taken from a graph by H. L. Haehl, published in quot;Report on Waste Water Salvage Project.quot;
opp. p. 72.

in October 1931, the people for several reasons did not grant the bond issue
needed for its execution. A large number opposed it in their anxiousness to avoid
^inc^ring additional land charges, others because of a scepticism as to the feâsTbÏÏ^
ity of the plan. This phase of the water conservation policy can not be dealt with
here, but the project itself, though voted down in its present form, is such a
good illustration of the chief issue which a horticultural region in a subhumid
climate has to face that it may be shortly described here in its main features.
Moreover, its consideration is instructive for an understanding of the particular
problems incident to water conservation in the Santa Clara Region. It seems
quite probable that eventually the plan may be accepted, be it in a somewhat
different form.

In principle, the project purposes to re|)lenish the ground water reservoirs
by means of interc^ing, wherever possible, the run-off from the watersheds,
and by appropriate works gradually transferring it to the underground storage.
This would be accomplished by a system of dams and reservoirs to impound the
seasonal floods and to release the water through the year into streambeds and
percokting canals. It is estimated that by this means 48 % of the present waste
water would be saved. The area to be benefitted by this plan is exactly that which
this paper designates as the Northern or Bay Section, the non-agricultural Palo
Alto comer of the Valley being excluded.

By the construcdon of dams in the lower canyons of the Stevens, Guadelupe,
and Almaden Creeks of the Santa Cruz Range, and of the Coyote River of the
Mount Hamilton Range, the largest watershed areas tributary to the Valley
could then be controlled. From these reservoirs water could be released in such
quantities as could be easily taken up by the gravels at the apex of the alluvial
fans and in the stream beds of the Valley floor, where the natural absorption would
be increased by especially constmcted spreading dams. In the canyons of the
small creeks, where reservoirs are unnecessary, check dams were projected to
regulate the stream flow and to clarify the flood waters from silt, thereby
making for more effective downstream percolation.

A particular problem is constituted by the fact that the most plentiful water
source, the Coyote River, lies at a considerable distance from the area of greatest
ground water depletion, that near Campbell. The drop of the ground water has
been largest m evidence in this region, a proof that here is the area of most rapid
subsurface flow and that here measures for increased absorption will be most
effective. Of the total watershed area of the Santa Clara Valley, 44 % belongs to
Coyote River, and of the water available for conservation nearly half originates
here. According to the riparian dogma, as current in California, the Coyote water
can not be used for the Bay Region until the water rights of the lands bordering
the stream as well as those profiting from seepage have been satisfied. In normal
years there is a material surplus above what is needed for the Coyote Valley south
of the Narrows, and thus a supply for the Northern Section. By the establishment
of diversion works just north of Coyote Gap near Edenvale, this otherwise
unutilized water could be elevated into two canals along the higher Valley bor-
ders, the larger one to the west and the smaller to the east, and released on the
pervious upper portions of the alluvial fans.

The dratt which irrigation alone makes on the ground water is estimated
for the present at 100,000 acre feet per year. When the water table rises again -
assuming that the plan sketched above, or one kindred to it, will be enacted, and
that there will come a period of wet years, as may reasonably be expected - the
future draft for irrigation, as foreseen by the trend to truck farming and by the
expanded use of orchard irrigation, will grow to be at least 120,000 acre
feet 1). If the average natural replenishment supplies 76,000 acre feet per year,
and a waste water salvage plan adds 61,000 acre feet, a total of 137,000 acre
feet would be available annually without again lowering the ground water level.
Water use for domestic and industrial purposes is not known exactly. If we take
the figures reported by Tibbets, we find that though there was an annual natural
replenishment of the ground water Vith 76,500 acre feet, the depletion averaged
in the last sixteen years 42,000, perhaps 50,000, or even 60,000 acre feet. This
means an annual use of at least 118,000 acre feet in recent years. By deducting
the estimated use for irrigation purposes, the remainder - at least 18,000 acre
feet - would have been used for domestic and industrial purposes.

If these estimates are correctly interpreted, this means that by a future use
of 120,000 acre feet for irrigation, and by no increase for domestic and industrial
purposes, the total future draft would be 138,000 acre feet, which exceeds the
total replenishment of the ground water table as estimated by the Water Con-
servation Plan. As the development of the region around San Francisco Bay
seems to go in the direction of industrialization, it would seem doubtful if the
above described plan would on itself be sufficient to supply entirely the future
needs. An extension of the conservation works, which in a limited way is
possible, would add some more thousands of acre feet, but still not enough to
make up for the whole deficit.

Summarizing, one might say that the Water Conservation Plan would for
the near future check the alarming fall in the ground water level and, during a
period of wet years, make it even rise again, but that for long time planning
the offered relief will be inadequate. Thus, the Santa Clara Valley of the future,
when the metropolitan regions on either side of San Francisco Bay will have
closed around the southern Bay shore, will have to look outside its own tributary
watershed territory for an additional water supply. The snow of the Sierra Nevada,
which will provide San Francisco with water by means of the Hetch Hetchy
Project, may also serve the Santa Clara Valley, in addition to its local resources:
a new relation would thereby be established between the subhumid intra-Coast
Range region and the high mountain chain that forms the physical backbone
of California.

The shift to intensive land utilization in the Santa Clara Valley has been
coupled with a steady growth of the population. The subdivision of wheat, hay,
and grazing lands into small tracts for specialized agriculture led an -increasing

1) The estimates given on this page are based upon the data supphed by Report IX.

number of people to engage in farming. Closely connected with the rural develop-
ment was the rise and multiplication of trades, services, and industries mainly
based on agricultural production. These new enterprises naturally stimulated
the growth of the existing settlements and often became the focal points for new
agglomerations. Associated with the expansion of towns was the movement of
rural population to urban environment, counterbalanced in part by a drift of
town workers and retired people to the countryside — all transmutations in the
location and structure of population, deserving somewhat closer observation.

In general, the United States Census defines all those agglomerations of less
than 2,500 inhabitants as rural i). As such towns in the Valley have the same
functional character as those over 2,500 the Census classification is in principle
not acceptible here. It is impossible, however, to regroup with exactitude the
figures into quot;town populationquot; and quot;open country populationquot; as no figures
are known for the unincorporated towns among the small agglomerations. In
order to make full use of the valuable Census material the official enumeration is
therefore followed here 2). In the main, the discussion will be limited to Santa
Clara County; the Palo Alto area is included wherever the use of the County
statistics makes this necessary.

Of the 145,118 inhabitants of Santa Clara County, the Fifteenth Census
(1930) reports 94,844 as urban and 50,274 as rural. Of the latter group, 25,761
form the quot;rural farm populationquot; »). The remaining 24,513, comprising 49 %
of the total rural population, form a heterogeneous group which may be termed
the quot;rural non-farm populationquot;. Even if one knows that 4,000 of this group
reside in small towns, the 20,000 living in the open country not on farms is a;
surprisingly great number, at least to a stranger who, because of the agricultural
character of the region, expects to find most of the countryside population to
be farmers. This phenomenon will perhaps become more clear if the growth and
status of the farm population is first considered.

The following table shows the increase in number of farms since 1880,
and also the changes in size of the farm unit. While in 1880 the farms larger than
one hundred acres constituted more than half of the total, at present they are not
more than one tenth. Farms of three to fifty acres now form the bulk of larming

The shght modification used in connection with the 1930 census so as to include
unmcorporated townships and other political subdivisions which have a population of 10,000
or more, and a population density of 1000 or more per square mile, does not affect the region
under discussion.

\'\') The population of the small towns may be estimated as follows; officially known
are the incorporated towns: Morgan Hill, 908 inhabitants, and Alviso 381; the others —
Saratoga, Monte Vista, Los Altos, Milpitas, Campbell, San Martin — may be estimated at
2500 in the aggregate. The total for the small towns is thus about 3800.

®) The Census defines as rural farm population quot;all persons living on farms without
regard to occupationquot; and as urban farm population quot;all persons living on farms within the
limits of incorporated places having 2,500 inhabitants or over.quot; This last group is very small
and therefore may^be disregarded.

units, making up 76 per cent of all the farms. The transmutation from wheat
farms and cattle ranches to fruit and truck enterprises are evident by these
figures

According to the Census, the land acreage in farms of 260-499 acres
and in those of 1000 acres and over, decreased 94,025 acres ^om 1920
to 1930. The increase in acreage of all other farm sizenbsp;^4.185

acres, which results in a decrease of quot;land in farmsquot; totaling about 60 000 acres.
This can be partly explained by the expansion of towns and suburban settle-
ments. As practically no other land on the Valley floor has been given up for
farming, it seems very probable that for a good deal the 60,000 acres of decrease in
quot;land in farmsquot; in the Santa Clara County was caused by abandonment of the

In respect to the farm pattern in the Valley, any conclusions based simply
on the number of farms would lead to an entire misunderstanding of its social-
economic structure. In the same way, a stranger judging merely from the apparent
\' relationship between farm houses and their surrounding lands would be misled.
The usual conception of a farm, as consisting of a tract of land operated by the
resident farmer-owner or tenant, can be apphed to only a part of the agricultural
enterprises of the Valley. While in the seventies this quot;normal farm pattern was
still the common form (compare Maps Xa and XIa), today the situation is far
more complex. Maps Xb and Xlb show that a considerable number of properties
are without any residence and further that several houses stand unoccupied amidst
cultivated tracts. This reveals a peculiar relation at present existing between
farmer and land, a relation which may be called absentee-opemtorsMp. and which
deserves closer examination.

Total number of farms
3 acres and under
3—9nbsp;acres

10—19
20—49
50—99
100—174
175—259
260—499
500—999
1000—4,999
5000 acres and over

15. Dairy farm, east of Gilroy. -Alfalfa
(note unsheltered hay stack), and
vegetables near farmstead. Back-
ground the tree-lined Llagas Creek
and Diablo Mountains.

16. Pacheco Corners, in the Bolsa.
(Example of deteriorated social center
text p. 153). The school, not visible
on picture, is only institution still in
use. In background (between hall and
church) a dairy barn with silo.

This situation does not occur on the dairy farms where the regular routine
demands the presence of the operator and his help, and seldom on seed and vege-
table tracts which often are leased or worked on contract by Orientals, the tenants
or other kinds of operators usually being provided with living-quarters on the land.
The case lies different with fruit ranches. As orchards are by their nature likely to
suffer from mismanagement by tenants, they are seldom leased. The rule is
ownership Two factors have facilitated absentee-operatorship among the
orchardists. The first of these is that orchards do not need the daily labor envolved
in certain other enterprises. The trees have to be pruned, sprayed, and, in most
cases, irrigated, the soil cultivated, and the crops harvested — activities which
entail considerable work and supervision, but which each take only a few days, or
at the most some weeks. This seasonal labor does not make residence on the tract_
imperative; a grower may have several orchards lying scattered in the vicinity
of his quot;residence-ranchquot;, or he may live in town, combining fruit growing with
some other occupation. Yet, it would have been impossible for the horticulturist
tojive elsewhere, and still take sufficient care of the trees if - and this is the second
factor - if were not for the automobile. The car and the e.xcellent fine-spun road-
web over the entire Valley enable the owner to live ten or twenty kilometers from
his orchard, or from some of his several orchard tracts, and still to reach them
easily in half an hour. When a man depends on a small fruit tract as his only
means of income he usually resides there. Many business men who have invested in
fruit ranches and who live in San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, or one of the
smaller towns, employ managers for their orchards. Laborers having their main
occupation in town and attracted by the fruit boom after the War have also put a
hand in orcharding, working their small lots in spare hours and on week ends. The
Census reports 266 part time farms a figure which in all probability is too small,
considering the very complicated relationships which exist here between city and
land. The result of all these cases - and many others could be cited - is the existence
of a large number of orchard lots without houses, or at most with little shacks
for temporary residence.

From what has just been said, it is also clear that by speaking of the quot;farming
populationquot; the line dividing it from the non-farming is far from sharp. The
urbanization of the region, especially the Northern Section, is to be found not
only in the number of people living in towns, but as well in the diversification of
occupations. There is a mixing of rural urban interests here which can not be
written in figures, but which all the same is powerful, giving a distinct character
to the region.

This mingling of agricultural and urban interests is also true for many of
those who reside on farms. There are, for instance, many small orchard lots and
chicken ranches in the vicinity of the urban settlements, the resident-owners of
which depend for their existence partly on the seasonal work in the canneries.

According to the last Census, seven per cent of the 4,520 fruit farms are leased;
of the remainder, nine tenths are operated by full owners, and one tenth by.part owners or
managers.

warehouses, and drying and packing plants. Travehng sale.smen and others who
have regular positions in town often prefer living in the country where they or
members of their families may supplement the income by fruit raising. Finally,
there is a class of semi-retired, professional, and business people who live in the
foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, particularly on the northern slope to the
Bay Region, and who consider fruit raising as a useful, agreeable occupation or
as a subsidiary means of income in pleasant surroundings.

The present economic depression has caused many in the United States to
turn to the land. As the movement was in progress at the time of this investigation,
it is impossible to gauge its extent. The Fifteenth Census reports that in the year
ending March 31, 1930, the number of persons who moved from incorporated
places to farms in Santa Clara County exceeded with 472 those who left farms for
cities, towns and villages. Among these 472 will have been many who took up
living with relatives, several who rented orchards or truck farms (the author met
some of this class) and perhaps some who planned to find their main source of
living in subsistence farming with part time work in town. In general, h^ever,
the last type of f arming must be an exception in the Valley, as most of the lands
are too costly to permit the raising of low value crops.

For the very reason that the urban-rural relations are so complex, it is
difficult to draw general conclusions. The occupational mobility existing in the
American society in general is one cause not to jump to conclusions regarding
the beginnings of a happy solution of the city-land antithesis so characteristic for
this era. The social-economic importance of the opportunity for farmers to add
to their income by industrial labor (canneries!) and for city laborers to have a
farm lot as a side hne is not to be underestimated as it adds to their economic
resistance. Yet, it should be remembered that the agriculture of the Valley is
principally monoculture, and subsistence farming in practically absent i). Thus
the ownership of a farm lot (quite apart from probable heavy mortgages) does far
from guarantee the city worker a possession on which he can fall bacjk in time of
financial distress; it means another link between him and the economic world.

Newcomers have rapidly displaced the old farmer\'s stock. The writer during
fieldwork found it more exception than rule to meet old timers who — or whose
parents — had lived quot;on the placequot; in the pioneer period. Many early settlers
sold out during the fruit booms; others were compelled to sell in order to cover
losses in speculation enterprises. A number of the remaining American farmers feel
that they can not compete against the immigrants without forfeiting their high
standard of living; besides, the younger generation is attracted to the quot;white
collar jobsquot; in town. Though there were many full Americans among those re-

1) According to the atest Census, there were in Santa Clara County 23 quot;self-sufficing
farmsquot; m 1930, this type of farm being defined as an enterprise quot;where the value of farm
products used by the operator\'s family was 50 per cent or more of the total value of all
products of the farm.quot;

placing the earlier group, the majority of the recent comers are immigrants or
the children of immigrants. The result has been that in the Santa Clara Valley
only a small portion of^the Americans of native parentagejjye on farms. Most
of them are engaged in other occupations and therefore are centered in the towns.
The following table, based on figures of the Fifteenth Census, gives evidence that:

1.nbsp;Nearly half of the County population is formed by native Americans of native \\
parentage, but only one tenth of them live on farms, constituting less than \\
one third of the rural farm population.

2.nbsp;The non-whites comprise only 6.8 % of the County population, but as forty
of every one hundred live on farms they make up 15.5 %^of the rural farm
population.

3.nbsp;The other groups take intermediate positions but fall quite in line with the
phenomenon which might be formulated thus:

The part of each quot;hirth and parentage groupquot; living on farms is approximately
in inverse proportion to its rating as American stock.

11.5	= 0.64
18.0
19.8
• 18.0	= 1.10
21.9
18.0	= 1.22
40.3	= 2.24
18.0

By using fractions of which the numerator indicates the percentage of each
group living on farms, and the denominator the per cent of County population
living on farms, a kind of quot;farmer ratioquot; for the several groups can be established.

Native white of mixed or foreign parentage: farmer ratio .
Foreign born white: farmer ratio.............

It will be noticed that ^/s of the farm population consists of foreign born
whites and native whites of foreign or mixed parentage — in other words, people
who are immigrants and others who are half or entirely second generation Amer-
icans. It is a significant fact that the southern and eastern Europeans, especially
/ I^lians, are well in the majority among the newcomers. Without entering into
the assimilation problem, it may be stated that in general the south and east
European immigrants are not readily accepted by the old stock American farmer.

The Census, which enumerates by Counties the native born whites of mixed
and foreign born parentage and those foreign born, and also the country of
birth, unfortunately does not give this last item a special count for the rural
population. The County data, nevertheless, give insight into the national origin of
the groups, information which sheds some light on the assimilation problem. Of
the inhabitants of Santa Clara County, about 43,000 are native whites of mixed
or foreign parentage, 23,000 of whom have one or both parents originating in
Northwest and Central Europe, Canada, and Austraha, and 20,000 of whom have
one or both parents of South and East Europe or Latin American nativity ;
about 26,000 of the County population is foreign born, approximately 11,000
coming from countries of the first group, and 15,000 from countries of the second
group. Thus, among the actual immigrants, the south and east Europeans are well
in the majority As there is a higher percentage of the foreign born living
on farms than of native whites of foreign or mixed parentage, it may
be concluded that the south and east European immigrants form a large and
evidently increasing part of the farm population.

Besides that part of the rural population which engages in farming as a
main or part time occupation, there is about an equal number of rural residents
who do not live on farms. These comprise a group even more complex than that
of the farmers. After what has been said about, this situation, and to avoid con-
fusing details, this group may be roughly classified under three headings:
the residents in private country homes; the operators of open country and
highway service and retail units; the inhabitants of the clusters and small
towns under 2,500, classified by the census as rural population. The first of
these three groups is mainly a result of the equable climate of the Valley
which makes it quot;an ideal place for home seekers,quot; as is expressed with just

The Census defines as natives of mixed parentage those born in the United States
who have one parent native and the other foreign born, and classifies them according to
country of the foreign bom parent, based on present poUtical boundaries of European
countries.

In this computation there is necessarily a large arbitrary element; in the first group
were included those who have one or both parents originating from the British Isles and
Ireland, Finno-Scandinavia, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Czecho-Slovakia, Austria,
France, Canada, and Australia; in the second group those from Poland, Hungary, Yugo-
slavia, Russia, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Armenia, Azores, South and Central America,
and the whites from Mexico.

pride in the booster booklets. The search for a milder chmate than foggy, windy
San Francisco has not only given the Palo Alto district its almost pure resi-
dential character, but has also caused the development of country settlement
farther south in the wooded foot of the Santa Cruz Range. The construction
about 1905 of a suburban electric railroad along the foothills from May field
to Saratoga and Los Gatos, with a connection to San Jose, has greatly facihtated
residential occupance of the foothill belt. The northwest corner of the Valley, as
far south as Los Altos, is within an hour\'s commuting distance from San Fran-
cisco. Furthermore, many business people from San Jose, retired people, writers,
and others not bound to direct access to the city, have estabhshed themselves
in the foothill country. The Census data, iii respect to age classes, clearly indicate
that the foothill townships have a larger proportion of people above 45 years
than has the rest of the Valley. While the average proportion of people above
45 for Santa Clara County is 29.8 per cent, this group comprises in Redwood
and Saratoga townships respectively 39.1 and 41.1 per cent of the total popula-
tion^). The other groups of rural non-farming population are in function so much
a part of the other service centers that they best are dealt with in that connection.

Though from the start the American farmer in the Santa Clara Valley was a
commercial producer, he relied to some extent on home production for home
consumption. In the pioneer period milk, butter and bread were produced on the
farm, as were simple tools and improvements for the house and barn. As long as
wheat was the staple, the towns had little share in handling the crop save that
of shipping and giving financial assistance. In contrast is the present situation
wherein fruit growers are to the highest degree specialized producers. Dependent
for their daily existence on the products of others, just as are the urban residents,
they are served throughout the entire Valley by grocer, baker, milk, meat and
vegetable men. Their homes, modern in equipment and style, are built by skilled
workers. Farm implements are purchased in town. The fruit crop, which needs
more care and preparation for market than did wheat, is handled by canneries,
packing estabhshments, drying plants. The financial direction of the agricultural.
production has come largely into the hands of cooperative growers\' organizations I
and private firms. Thus, the functions of the towns, though qualitatively not e
very different from those in the seventies (see p. 92) have specialized and multiplied^
by the increased correlations between farm and city. The essentially agricultural
character of the Valley and the relatively high standard of living of the Cali-
fornian farmer have given agricultural interests the overweight, perhaps more,
than elsewhere in the United States. Farmers play a large role in the urban institu-
tions, economic as well as social. Their cooperative associations are centered in
town and are recognized as very important bodies. Moreover, as indicated before.

1) Fifteenth U.S. Census, 1930, Population Bulletin; Cahfornia, Second Series—popu-
lation by sex, color, age, etc. for counties by minor civil divisions.

many urban residents are directly interested in agricultural enterprises. Thus,
while institutional leadership continues to concentrate in town, the farmers have
a large share in it.

This growing interdependence between rural and urban interests has further
been facilitated and, for a good part, caused by the introduction of more rapid
and direct methods of transportation and communication. Up to about 1910 the
usual long distance means of transportation was the railroad, and for local con-
veyance the horse drawn wagon, carriage, or buggy. In view of the small operation
radius of the horse drawn vehicle, the solution of the communication problem
consisted in estabhshing a dense net of iron roads with a large number of depots,
each of which served as a distributing and collecting center for a relatively small
area. The main railroad, built in the sixties, and later supplemented by branch
hues to Alviso and Los Gatos and by the suburban lines covering the densely
populated quot;West sidequot;, gave an adequate service to the greater part of the Valley.
This intricate system has suffered a revolution as a result of the introduction of
motor transportation. The automobile, greatly enlarging the individual area of
action, has materially restricted the functions of the iron road and has expanded
the territory which can be served from a railroad depot. Where towns had developed
at stations, they became centers for a wider trade area; where not. the station fell
into disuse.

Besides automobiles and good roads came free rural mail delivery, the city
newspaper, telephone, radio. Retail stores introduced merchandise unknown in the
old time general store. The farmer could take advantage of an increasing volume
of services performed by the non-farming population \' and of more specialized
methods of selling, advertising and buying. In correlation with the development
of service organizations to a high degree of complexity and luxuriousness, uirban-
ized standards of living conquered the countryside. The complicated task of the
service centers has on the whole increased their population and has resulted in
the interpolation of new agglomerations between those already existing.

Only one group of service settlements has failed to keep pace: tiny service
clusters which in an earlier period were the primary economic and social centers
of the farming neighborhood and now, with the speeding up of transportation,
have seen part of their functions taken over by the better equipped towns. Though
their number has actually increased slightly since 1875, this means a definite
lagging behind when compared with the larger service centers. Several of these
small units appear stagnant; they still serve the primary, daily wants of the
locahty. but have lost almost entirely their social functions. In addition to the -
fact that the better equipped towns have become more easily within reach, the
replacement of the former quot;Nordicquot; American farmer stock by the south and\'east
Europeans of a different culture (religion!) may serve as an explanation of the
social breakdown of the local community. As this matter will be touched
again, the discussion may be limited here to the indication of these general
determinants.

The increase of towns and cities has not occurred with the same rate in all
parts of the Valley. This can.bedemonstratedby an examination of the proportion
which the quot;urban populationquot; forms of the total population in each of the three
Sections It should be noted that the incorporated towns with less than 2500
inhabitants have been included here as they are similar in their pattern to the
places with more than 2500 inhabitants. This still leaves out of consideration the
unincorporated towns for which no population data have been reported by the
Census. As commonly towns have been incorporated when their population was still
below the thousand, their omission from the quot;urban populationquot; makes no
considerable difference.

In respect to the Northern Section, the table shows that while in the seventies
the urban population increased proportionally far more than the open country
element, due to the coming of the railroad, the ratio between the two groups
ƒ^daring the period 1880—1900 was rather constant, each forming half of the
population. In the twentieth century the changes in economic structure have led
to a further expansion of the urban group, which now comprises more than two
thirds of the population of the Northern Section. In the Central Section the urban
population grew at a remarkably constant rate in proportion to the total popu-
lation of the Section — that is, save for the situation in the nineties when the

Though boundaries between judicial townships have often been changed, that
separating the Northern from the Central Section has fortunately remained unaltered, as
has also the County line which is approximately the dividing mark between the Central
and Southern Sections. The Southern Section almost coincides with the present Hollister
Township of San Benito County. The Palo Alto Township, with the city Palo Alto, is here
•ncluded as it has had the status of suburban area only for the last twenty-five years.

influx of farmers to subdivided ranches caused for a time a notable excess of the
rural population i). Its present ratio of towns people is about the same as that of
the Bay Region in 1870. At first glance, the Southern Section would seem to have
at present a ration of urban population intermediate between that of the other
two Sections of the Valley. Allowance has to be made, however, for the fact that
Hollister is not only local service center of the Southern Section, but also for the
entire San Benito County of which it is the capital. If the only other town, San
Juan Bautista with 772 inhabitants, is included^he urban population of San
Benito County for 1930 constitutes exactly forty per cent of the entire County
population. San Benito County and the Central Section may be classed as purely
agricultural regions, consisting of a valley floor used for horticulture, dairying,
grain and hay raising, and of a surrounding mountain territory which is range
country. The towns function as the supply and shipping nodes, with some manu-
facturing of agricultural products. Furthermore, they are the local social centers
and among them is one town with county administrative functions. This pattern
in its very essence is agricultural. As the ratio of urban and open country popula-
tion both in the Central Section and in San Benito County is practically the same,
it would seem that the numerical relation between urban and open country
population as found here is representative for pure agricultural regions of this
kind in Central California.

This surmise was checked by comparison with other essentially rural agricul-
tural regions in this part of Cahfornia. The portion that the population of all in-
corporated towns and cities formed of the total county population was found to
be in Stanislaus County 43 %, in Sonoma 40 %, in Napa 40 %, in San Luis Obispo
40 %, and in Monterey - after deduction of the resort towns at Carmel Bay -
also 40 % 2). It is evident that the district which gives the Santa Clara Valley as
a whole its high percentage of urban population is the Northern Section. The
logarithmic chart on page 133 showing the growth curve for the incorporated
towns illustrates the rapid increase of population in several of the urban settlements
in the Bay Section.

The large area of intensive agricultural production formed by the Bay
I^Section has caused the establishment of a great number of industries which are
I directly or closely connected with the manufacture and shipping of the farm
produce. Among these the canneries and packing plants - numbering over fifty-
two in the Bay Section, seven in the Central and two or three in the Southern

In the nineties several ranches then still existing in the Central Section were subdivided
and the towns of Morgan Hill and San Martin (both in 1892) surveyed. Source: Recorder\'s
Office, San Jose, Book F. These new towns were in a certain sense of quot;urbanquot; character,
but their population was yet very small.

It has been purposely stated that this relation exists in Central California. The
counties sampled in Northern California show the following urban percentages: Del Norte
37, Shasta 31, Mendocino 34, Siskeyou 30. Counties in Southern California have a far higher
percentage of urban population: Orange 65, Ventura 54, San Bernardino 64, Santa Barbara
66. A comparative study of these regional differences would seem an interesting topic.

Section!) — take an important place. The majority of other industries produce for
the local market — furnishing agricultural implements, fruit boxes, tin cans, lum-
ber, sheet metal, paper, etc. The central location of the Northern Section of the
Santa Clara Valley in respect to Cahfornia, the proximity of the Bay cities of
San Francisco and Oakland with their harbor facilities and marketing opportuni-

ties, have led here to the establishment of several industries which work for a
wider market. These form, however, only a minor part of the total industry as
is clear from the fact that only nine per cent of the total number of persons
gainfully employed in Santa Clara County work in quot;manufacturing industriesquot;.

1) The Market Data Handbook of the United States Department of Commerce,
Washington 1929, reports 59 canning and preserving factories for Santa Clara County;
only 7 of these are in the Central Section, according to the quot;Industrial Directory of San Jose
and Santa Clara Countyquot;, 1931. The Hollister Chamber of Commerce was unable to supply
adequate information.

A large part of the industry is located at San Jose, which city has 40 per cent of
the County population and has 52.5 per cent of the quot;persons 10 years old and
over, engaged in gainful occupations.quot; The following tabled) enumerates the
most important occupational groups for the County as well as for San Jose. The

PERSONS TEN YEARS OLD AND OVER ENGAGED IN GAINFUL OCCUPATIONS
for Main Industrial Groups of Santa Clara County and San Jose, 1930

table shows that San Jose has a far higher percentage of the manufacturing
industries and public services (banking, real estate, wholesale and retail trade)
than its quotum would be in accordance to its share (40 %) of the County popu-
lation. It indicates the character of San Jose as the local metropolis, the trade |
and finance center of the region, the administrative headquarters of the County. I
Only for the professional groups (leaving aside the agricultural workers) is
San Jose below its ratio of County population. The Stanford University at Palo
Alto, the Santa Clara University at Santa Clara, and several other educational
institutions in the foothill belt, as well as the fact that wealthy residents concentrate
in Palo Alto and the western foothill district, explain the relatively low figure for
San Jose in the professional and semi-professional groups.

1) Fifteenth Census of the United States; Population Bulletin, Second Series, Cali-
tornia 1931, p. 48 and 50. The manufacturing industries include: steel, paper, and furniture
industries, saw and planing mills, electrical machinery and supply factories., automobile re-
pair shops, and independent hand trade. As some small groups have been omitted from this
table, the percentages when added do not come up to 100 per cent.

The figures reported for workers in the food industries are misleading, owing
to the seasonal character of the fruit industry. Düring the main operating season
from June to November, with the peak in August, the total number of employees
is from two to four times larger than in winter. As especially the women are
seasonal workers, the fluctuation for female labor is even far greater. The San
Jose Chamber of Commerce has published figures referring to this matter,
based on a survey of 1921. Though these facts are not up to date, they give
an indication of the situation

Mimeographed copy (no special title), issued by Chamber of Commerce at San Jose,

The quot;facequot; of a region must be understood as a product of the correlations
between man\'s activity and the physical environment. The present landscape
of the Santa Clara Valley is thus viewed here, in the light of the foregoing analysis,
as the areal expression of these shaping forces. The term landscape may mean
merely the sensory impression received from any arbitrary scene (p. 8); in a
narrower sense, it may also signify the outward manifestation of a closely related
complex of factors which give a certain region a unity in appearance. Scientific
observation and analysis of a section of the earth\'s surface leads to the discern-
ment of a number of distinct patterns, landscape types, each individual in char-
acter. By applying this objective to the Santa Clara Valley and to the areas
that form its boundaries, we may distinguish the following landscape types:

2.nbsp;The wooded, uninhabited mountains west of the Central and
Southern Sections

3.nbsp;The wooded foothills west of the Northern Section, mixed agricul-
tural and residential in character.

Though the terminology given above is slightly different from that onquot; Map 3 (Plate
II), it agrees in principle: an attempt to indicate with short expressions the nrain.charac
teristics of the landscape units.

No form of agriculture has so completely transformed the appearance of the
Santa Clara Valley as has the cultivation of fruit trees. Once a grassland dotted
with evergreen oaks, a large portion of the Valley is now covered by a veritable
forest of deciduous trees. Two points to be answered in a description of the
orchard landscape are: first, where in relation to regional conditions is it located,
and second, what are its characteristic features.

As Map 3 (Plate II) illustrates, the orchard formation does not occupy one
contiguous area but occurs as five landscape tmits: two in the Northern Section,
two in the Central Strip and one in the Southern Basin. The largest of these is
on the quot;west sidequot; of the Northern Section at the foot of the Santa Cruz Range,
stretching down toward the Bay as far as the main railroad, touching on the
west the suburban fringes of Palo Alto-Mayfield and bordering on the east the
bottomlands of the Coyote and Guadelupe Rivers. A second, but considerably
smaller orchard area, lies on the other side of the Valley before the Mount Hamil-
ton Range. In the Central Section the orchards are divided into two districts
— north and south — by a region of more diversified land use. In the Southern
Section the one fruit area is centered about Hollister with a northern outshoot
girdling the eastern side of the alkali Bolsa.

This local distribution of orchards throughout the Santa Clara Valley is in
direct adaptation to the regional variations of climate, soil, and water availability.
Each of the fruits has become concentrated in the specific optimal environment
to which man has found it most suited. Under the present economic circumstances,
the raising of a fruit in its most ideal location is almost without competition;
in regions less fit to its individual needs it is rivaled by other crops or pushed
out entirely. In order not to confuse the presentation of the orchard landscape
by a detailed description of all the Valley fruits, only the main ones will be here
discussed: prunes, apricots, and pears.

The climate with its long season of warm, clear weather has particularly
favored the development of these fruits to their highest quality. The cool and
often foggy conditions of the Bay borderlands, less suitable to prunes and
apricots than to pears, are not present in the inland portions of the Valley itself.
The winds are seldom strong, in summer reaching a maximum of ten miles
an hour, and severe storms rarely occur. The killing frosts of spring, however,
have a definite influence upon the location of these fruits. Pears, the most hardy)
of the three, are found even in the lowest parts of the Valley. On the other hand,\'
apricots — early blooming and especially sensitive to frosts — are more or less |
restricted to the upper elevations where night air drainage causes a higher
temperature than in the bottomlands. PrunesntendTo occupy the intermediate
territory. The use of orchard heaters has materially lessened the damage risks
and, wherever very favorable soils permit the additional cost, it has even expanded
the range of apricots and, to some degree, of prunes. At higher altitudes the frost

danger again increases, setting the upper climatic limit for prunes and apricots
at four hundred to five hundred meters, a factor which is rather theoretical
inasmuch as the stony soils preclude orchards.

Within these areas of favorable climate, the range of prunes and apricots
is further reduced by other elements, soils being the most important. Though
both of these fruits can be grown on a variety of quot;soils, they reach their best com-
mercial production on the well-drained, deep, friable Yolo loaim of medium
texture and high organic content. More or less unfit for the growing of these
fruits are the soils of heavy texture — especially those with quot;adobequot; structure —
and also those that are light and sandy, shallow and stony, or strongly
impregnated with alkali. The Yolo loams (see p. 25 ff and Map 2, Plate II)
occupy the greater part of the broad, gentle-sloped alluvial fans which are,
on the whole, within the environment climatically most ideal for prunes
and apricots.

Yet, even within this area of good soils and suitable climate there is another
point to be considered: the availability ofjgo^^for irrigation. It may be repeated
here that, though irrigation is not an absolute necessity for fruit raising, it so
materially increases the regularity of a high quality yield that it must be included
under the factors comprising the optimum environment. This third condition,
in contrast to climate and soil, is of particularly dynamic character at the
present because of the ever increasing draft on the ground water and the conse-
quent lowering of the water table (see p. 118 ff.). The farmer can secure water
only by the costly investment jof deepening his well or making a new one;
if he is financially not in the position to do this he may have to give up irrigation
entirely or limit the application of water to such areas as circumstances permit.
It is obvious that irrigation is indeed a variable factor in the area of optimum
environment.

costliness of irrigation forms a definite check on a climax development of orchards
— this, in spite of otherwise favorable conditions of climate and soil; this region
is in the foothills and adjacent valley edge. As the depth to the water table
increases from the lowlands to the valley borders, the difficulties of obtaining
water are proportionally aggravated. Even if water can be secured here, there
is the added problem of distributing it evenly over irregular and sloping surfaces.
The rolling upper part of the compound fan on the west side of the Bay Region is
the largest area where otherwise favorable conditions are impaired by insufficient
or impossible application of water. Two factors, however, counterbalance to a
certain extent this lack of irrigation — the larger amount of precipitation in
this elevated area and the quot;human elementquot;. A large number of people have
selected this district for residence and many of them engage in fruit raising as
a side line. Thus, in spite of the economically precarious situation, the orchards
in the foothills transgress the boundaries of the optimum environment. Yet
one has not far to go up into the rolling hills to find gaps in the tree cover, indi- ^
eating the transitional zone between the intensively utilized valley areas and
the mountain borderlands.

Recapitulating, we have narrowed the areas most suitable for the cultivation
of prunes and apricots down to those with the following qualifications: soils
of recent alluvial, medium-textured loams, a chmate sunny and relatively free
from spring killing frosts; a water supply available for irrigation; a surface even
or almost even. Keeping these conditions in mind while examining Map 3, it
will be noted that the units of solid orchard landscape practically coincide with
those of optimum environment. This is an outcome of a long period of trial and
error plantings since the beginnings of horticulture in the Valley. Almost all
other forms of agriculture have been forced out of these regions by the successful
cultivation of fruits. This does not mean that orchards are not found outside
their climax territory; except in decidedly adverse environments they also share
the land with other crops, forming landscapes of quot;diversified land usequot;.

As the Mexican rancho, and later the old time American wheat farm, mirrored
each in turn the major economic activity of the occupying group, so today
the quot;fruit ranchquot; is the representative enterprise unit dominating the Valley.
The sum of the fruit farms gives the total picture of the orchard landscape;
to understand the appearance of the whole, one must examine the elements of
which it is comprised.

The Mexican roughly defined the boundaries of his vast property by some
natural markers; the American pioneer carefully fenced his one or two hundred
and odd acres; the present orchardist indicates his ten or twenty acre lot by a
few stakes between his outer row of trees and that of his neighbor. Only where
the redwood fence still survives from an earlier period is the property line clearly
outlined. The fact that individual lots are unmarked by fences and many times
do not contain houses easily leads one unacq-\'dainted with the local situation
to a wrong impression of the agricultural settlecnent (see e. g. photo 2). For this
reason, special stress was laid on the field mapping of present property lines,
though even so it was not possible to bring out the point that often scattered
lots are under one ownership. Apart from interesting facts disclosed by a com-
parison of the farm pattern of 1875 with that of 1930, the sample maps have
value in preventing erroneous conclusions which would inevitably arise were
only visible facts of land utilization recorded.

As might be expected in horticultural enterprises, most of the quot;fruit ranchesquot;
are small — at least for American standards. According to the last Census
the 4,520 fruit farms in Santa Clara County are classified as follows: 800 of less
than 10 acres, 1,482 from 10 to 19 acres. 1,445 between 20 and 49 acres, and
only 793 of 50 acres and over. High investments not only keep the land units
small, but they compel a full use of the land. The trees mathematically spaced
fill as much of the area as is possible, crowding in upon the buildings. The kind

of tree, the character of the soil and slope, together with the mode of irrigation,

Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930; Agriculture^alifornia, third series,
Type of Farm. Washington 1932. Compare table on p. 104.

determine the pattern in which the trees are placed. Prunes are usually planted
on the square system, about seven meters apart on shallow or sandy soils and
about nine on deep, fertile soils which promote larger growth. Fifty to one hundred
trees are set to the acre, depending on the distance apart. By following the so-
called hexagonal system where each tree is equidistant from all immediately
surrounding, about fifteen per cent more trees can be planted per acre^). On
rolling land where irrigation is practised, still another plan is often followed —
that of planting on contour lines carefully defined by a surveyor. Where irrigation
is not possible the trees are usually planted farther apart in order to conserve
for each a larger area of soil moisture.

During the years before the trees come into full bearing many an orchardist
depends for a maintenance revenue on intercrop\'tgt;ing_ — planting vegetables
of a wide variety, nursery stock, berries, but most commonly spinach and
tomatoes. Prunes become full bearing about their sixth or seventh year, though
earlier they may produce enough to pay expenses and possibly to yield a small
profit. Intercropping is also associated with young apricot orchards, but as this
tree makes a more spreading growth the practice seldom exceeds the third year

A growing number of orchardists combine chicken . raising with fruit culti-lt;
vation. The mulched surface of the orchardfiffords a good chicken run and the
returns from chickens and eggs bring in cash. Other orchardists keep
bees, not only for honey and wax but as well for pollinating purposes. To
obtain good results for bee culture, it must be first ascertained that there are
other nectar sources, such as alfalfa, in the vicinity to supply the bees after the
fruit blossoming season. As this condition often does not exist, many a grower
depends for the pollination of his fruit on migratory, professional beekeepers
who are paid a small sum for placing their colonies for a few weeks in the orchard.

The production of high sta/idard fruits involves a cycle of orchard activities:
irrigation, soil conditioning, sprc\';-ying, smudging, pruning, thinning, harvesting
and, on a number of ranches, the drying of fruits. Though in a sense these are
transitory and mobile elements, they are nevertheless an inherent part of the
orchard landscape.

Irrigation practices vary widely according to water availability and cost,
character of soil, kind and size of trees, and amount of precipitation for the
particular year. Water is applied from one to several times during the growing
season and again after harvest; if precipitation has been below normal many
growers give also a winter irrigation — provided they can obtain the water at
a satisfactory price. The water is lifted from the wells by electric or oil pumps,
the windmill commonly providing not more than is needed for home use. The
basin method of irrigation is used for level regions: the orchard is divided by
small levees into rectangular or square basins, each enclosing one or more trees;
these are filled with water row by row, the lowest basin first, then the next and
so on. On sloping lands and foothill regions the contour method is used: the

trees on one level, usually indicated by marks of the same color, are included
in a common irrigation basin, (see photo 12).

In winter the orchard\'floor is usually green with a cover crop of natural
vegetation or, more often, of an especially sown legume such as vetch, bur clover,
cowpeas, Melilotus indica and several others; this cover crop adds org^ic m_^ter
to the soil, making it more friable, aids in improving the environmental conditions
for beneficial soil organisms and, if it is a legume, adds nitrogen. In March or
April this crop is plowed under and the surface harrowed and disked to obtain
a loose and fine soil layer which later facilitates the construction of irrigation
levees or furrows. After an irrigation the soil is usually harrowed to remove weed
competition. The orchard floor is kept clean and mulched throughout the summer
and before harvest it is quot;plankedquot; or rolled. This is especially necessary for the
prune orchards as the fruit, instead of being picked from the tree as are apricots
and pears, is allowed to fall to the carefully prepared ground.

Smudging, while an expensive operation, is often imperative to save the
blosso^and particularly the young fruits from frost damage. During March
and April, orchard heaters (a Californian invention) usually of an open lard pail
type filled with oil are set out over the orchard, about 100 to an acre. A frost
alarm is set to ring when the temperature reaches 33 or 34 degrees Fahrenheit,
on which signal the grower lights the quot;smudge potsquot;, at first only a part, then,
if the thermometers scattered over the orchards show further drop in temperature,
the rest. A drive through an orchard section on a crisp spring night sometimes
reveals the fantastic scene of smudge pot lighting.

A matter demanding the close attention of the grower is the control of diseases
and insect pests. Several diseases have been effectively checked by spraying,
but for others no certain remedy is yet known. Of these the most serious is the
oak fungus which probably originates from the roots of infected oak trees that
formerly occupied the region; this disease affects the roots, killing the trees
and spreading slowly but surely from tree to tree if no timely measures are taken
to isolate the area. Growers in the Central Section especially have complained
about serious losses. Insects are fought by spraying with certain chemicals or
oil at times when they are most vulnerable. Some pests are controlled by banding
the trees or by white-washing the lower trunks. It is of interest to note here
that the Continental Railroad, while opening the East for California fruits, was
at the same time the medium by which a number of diseases, absent until then
in California, were introduced by means of returning fruit boxes. After ten
years of hopeless struggle to exterminate the pests by all kinds of means, the
farmers understood that the community interest could only be safeguarded by
restricting individual freedom through State legislation; in 1881 a law was enacted
compelling farmers to disinfeb^^or destroy affected trees, and in the same year
the first quarantine rules were parsed. Since then many successful measures
have been taken against disease ahd insects, contributing in a large part to
California\'s foremost rank in horticult^e.

The practice is becoming increasingly common to take the harvested fruits
to central dehydrating plants; nevertheless, the drying yard is still an integral
part of an orchard landscape. During the harvest season orange or purple rect-
angles of drying fruit form bright spots amidst the enclosing orchard blocks. Where\\
possible, the drying yard is located away from dusty roads and always with
a sunny exposure (see Photo 13) — about one acre for each twenty acres of trees.
Nearby is a shed for the portable trays, a brickstone lye tank and furnace for
the prunes, and perhaps a slicing shed and sulfur house for apricots, pears and
peaches.

In preparation for the drying, prunes are dipped for a few seconds into a
hot, dilute alkaline solution to clean them and remove the waxy bloom, and at
the same time to cause small cracks that facilitate evaporation. After grading,
the prunes are spread on trays in the direct sun for some days for quot;after ripeningquot;
— that is, for part drying and more uniform coloring of the fruit. Then the
trays are stacked and thus left in the open until the fruit in sufficiently dry
for storage; after quot;sweatingquot; two or three weeks to equalize the moisture, the
prunes are ready for delivery to private or cooperative packing houses where
they are graded and packed for market. Apricots, pears and peaches are cut
in half and cored or pitted; then before they are spread out on the drying yard
they are exposed for about twenty-four hours to sulfur fumes to fix the natural
colors and to prevent darkening by oxidation during drying.

Not only are there many growers who do not undertake the drying of fruit»
but also those who in other respects are not so fully equipped. Small orchar-
dists often find it more economical to buy water from a neighbor than to makt
the large investment of installing a pumping plant; they even rent implements,
spraying outfits, tractors, and take their harvested products directly to the central
warehouses and drying plants. In such cases the farmstead is an extremely
simple assemblage, surrounded closely by an orchard and consisting of nothing
more than a house, garage, windmill and high water-tank on stilts. Many orchards
have even less, sometimes only a small shack to serve for the implements or at
best for a temporary stay of the grower. Still more often the lot is merely an
orchard, managed by visits from the owner. These fruit ranches operated by
absentee-ownership reflect in the barest way the economic structure of the
present orchard industry.

If one moves from the fan slopes with their loam soils down to the adobe
or clay adobe bottomlands along the Bay and the Guadelupe and Coyote Rivers,
he will note that the orchard formation peters out while fields and pastures
form the dominant scene, the farm houses and their by-buildings, especially the
long white dairy bams, clearly standing in view. This dairy-tmck farm region
has a counterpart on the east side of the Southern Section where heavy textured
soils also preclude the development of a pmne and apricot quot;forestquot;-. This latter
region is strongly influenced by the character of the adjoining Bolsa and, because
of this, it has been indicated on Map 2, as a landscape type of diversified use.

7. A Mexican quot;haciendaquot;. Published by courtesy of the San Jose Mercury Herald. For description see text, p. 50.

The dairy and truck farm region in the Northern Section and that of the Southern
Section both have a high ground water table; though the artesian wells have
stopped flowing, water for irrigation of alfalfa, vegetables and berries is still
comparatively easy to obtain.

The region east of Gilroy, continuing along the eastern margin of the Bolsa
has also another industry, that of seed raising. As irrigation is very undesirable
for this, plantings are made exclusively on soils of high water-holding capacity.
This industry is kept from the foggy, windy Bay margin by the need for a max-
imum amount of sunshine and quiet atmosphere. It is also found in smaller areas
with favorable conditions south of San Jose and west of Coyote Station in the
northern part of the Central Section on the reclaimed quot;Laguna Secaquot; marshlands.
Lettuce, onion, radish and many other seeds are produced here in large quantities.
It has been estimated that the Santa Clara Valley furnishes 95 per cent of the
lettuce seed production in the United States, nearly all the radish seed, and
about 75 per cent of the onion seed. Though the work is done largely by Orientals
and Philippinos, the management closely directs each step from the selection
of the seed to the harvesting. The better seed firms maintain carefully supervised
stock and breeding plots where choice seeds quot;are planted, rogued carefully, and
threshed separatelyquot; i). The rainless summer allows the curing and drying of
the seed on sheets in the open air. Some of the leading seed firms of the United
States are located in the Santa Clara Valley.

The most dominant feature of the quot;openquot; landscape is the dairy farm
(Photo 15). Gone are the immense ranches along the marsh belt, each with its
several scattered dairy outfits. Yet, in a sense, the old system persists in that
the individual dairy enterprises are operated mostly on lands owned by large
proprietors. Though the units of the dairy region are smaller than formerly,
they are still large when compared with those of the orchard country. According
to the latest Census, the average size of the 196 dairy farms in Santa Clara County
is 184 acres; 60 % are between 20 and 174 acres. In San Benito County — of
which only a part lies in the Santa Clara Valley — the average size is 180 acres,
with 65 % between 20 and 174 acres. Apart from the fact that in Santa Clara
County there are relatively a few more farms with less than 20 acres, these figures
show that dairy farm units in the Northern and Southern Sections are much
the same in size. On Map Xb of the Northern Section it will be noted that the
quarter sections (160 acres) which existed here in the seventies (compare with
map Xa) are still intact; the same observation may be made concerning the
continuity of properties in the Southern Section (see Map Xlla and b).

In the agricultural economy of the dairy farms there have, however, occurred
great changes. The original meadow pastures were first replaced by fields of grain
grown for hay; later, alfalfa won the favor of the farmers and, though barley
and oats are still produced for hay, the luxurious, all summer green of alfalfa
is the dominating cover of the dairy farm lands. Alfalfa, if sufficiently irrigated,
gives five or six cuttings during the growing season. The farmer estimates that

one hundred acres in alfalfa is sufficient feed for eighty cows. The crop is partly
fed green but serves especially as dry winter fodder. Relatively few dairymen
make use of silage, such as corn, pea vines, etc.; a silo, is therefore, more an exception
than a rule in this region. Stall feeding with hay and concentrates has become
a general practice, and naturally has to be relied upon especially by those dairies
which have only a small acreage. Pasturing is usually limited to the dry cows
which are sometimes turned into the alfalfa fields or, more often, away from the
farm on the marshes or in the wild oat-covered foothills, or — as in the Southern
part of the Valley — on the salt grass pastures of the Bolsa.

Not all the land of the dairies is in hay crops. For the sake of rotation, a
portion of the land which has been used four or five years successively for alfalfa
is given over to some truck grower on a fifty-fifty basis: the dairy man gives
the land, furnishes water and implements, and receives half of the profits. The
crops most commonly planted are spinach, peas and tomatoes.

Accommodations and equipment of the dairies have also been extensively
improved as compared with the simple milkshed and corral of the former days.
The buildings consist of a large, long milkbarn with a gabled roof broken to permit
ventilation and with side walls of which the upper third is usually open; the
cows are now always milked in the barn, their stalls facing the central aisle.
Feed is brought into this aisle from the separate, high-gabled hay barn which
stands adjacent at right angles to the end of the milk barn. Close to the long
side of the milk barn, at the law-required distance, stands the milk house, often
connected to the barn by a roof. Here are kept the milk receiving tanks, boilers,
coolers and other utensils. The farmstead assemblage is completed by houses
for the operator and his help, and some quot;sheds for automobiles, trucks and haying
machines. On the older farms there is also a grove or driveway of eucalyptus
or even palm trees. The milk cows, usually Holsteins, are kept between milking
times near the barn in a corral which during the rainy season is too often a dismal
mud hole.

There is one region in the Santa Clara Valley where the absence of cultivated
crops as well as the lack of habitations has marked the landscape so strongly
that it must be recognized as a separate unit. This region is the ^ojsa, The name
in full the quot;Bolsa de San Felipequot;, means a quot;purselikequot; area, a basin, and
refers not only to the erstwhile Mexican grant from which it is derived but also
to the entire region of deficient drainage - the vast, barren, alkali flat of the
Southern Basin. From the Pajaro River where a border string of sycamores
and willows forms a landmark clearly seen at a considerable distance, this almost
uninhabited plain stretches south for about eleven kilometers to the orchard
country around Holhster, having a maximum width of about nine kilometers
from the low grassy Lomerias Muertas on the west to the reed-bordered San
Felipe Lake on the northeast. Nowhere in the entire Santa Cldra Valley is there
a more decided contrast than between the bare Bolsa plain and the densely
settled highly cultivated districts of Gilroy to the north and of Hollister to the south.

The soils of the Bolsa have become strongly impregnated with alkali on
account of insufficient drainage, perhaps the result of a recent sinking of this
region A comparison of the soil map (II) and the sketch map of the landscape
types (HI), or more in detail on Maps XII a and b, reveals that the alkali lands
closely coincide with the region of non-occupation. White alkali, chiefly chlorides
and sulphates of sodium, is most prevalent and can be clearly seen as a white
crust over the dirt roads after rains (see Photo 1). quot;Black alkahquot;, or bicarbonate
and carbonate of sodium, also occurs but mainly in the north-east comer of
the Bolsa along the Tequisquita Slough and San Felipe Lake. Both kinds of salt
are injurious to plant life, though to a different degree. As a result, salt grasses
are about the only natural vegetation of this area. Wheat and barley, which
can stand a moderate amount of alkali, are planted for hay in the least affected
spots. Fruit trees are absent on the Bolsa for they are very sensitive to alkali,
though pears less than the others. Onions and root crops are considered tolerant,
but a large planting of sugar beets here met with no success. Therefore, the Bolsa
presents only a grass vegetation, mostly salt grasses, with here and there tracts
of small grains for hay. One has but to compare the vegetational cover along
the Bolsa Road with that northwest of Dunneville Comers: the first lies in the
most barren part of the alkali basin, the second is an area of intensive agriculture
divided into small properties. Most of the latter are dairy farms, raising alfalfa
or a rotation crop of tomatoes; some are truck farms, and a few are orchards,
daring pioneers on the very edge of the alkali flat.

There is a difference between the westem and eastern part of the flat. The
former has no water courses except for some very minor ones which occasionally
carry the runoff from the hills a few kilometers into the plain. In the east, however,
several wide, shallow sloughs carry the winter flow from the Mount Diablo Range
and are tributary to the San Felipe Lake. Due to the construction of drainage
canals and to improvements on the natural water courses, a number of lagoons
and swamps formerly covering this eastern part of the flat have disappeared.
The most prominent of the reclamation works is the Millers Canal which, in
place of the shallow winding bed which is the beginning of the Pajaro River,
now affords an adequate outlet for the San Felipe lake. Ditches have also been
constructed to conduct the flood waters of the Tequisquita Slough to the lake.
These measures, however, have never been sufficient to allow a higher grade
of land utilization in the region and, on the other hand, there has been no induce-
ment to construct elaborate works because of the low value of the land. Thus,
Pacheco Creek still has no direct connection with the Tequisquita Slough, but
terminates in shallow channels which in turn have outlet only through a little
ditch leading to an extensive swamp in the shallow depression northwest of
Pacheco Corners. Only in winter do the floods from this swamp find an outlet
into the Tequisquita Slough.

Formerly, when less water was used for irrigation in the orchards and dairies
encircling the Bolsa, the groundwater table was so high that there were flowing

wells in the alkali flat and also sloughs containing water the entire year. Now
only the lake and the water courses in its vicinity have perennial water. This
lowering of the groundwater table in recent years, while creating a problem in
the dairy and orchard regions, has brought about a better drainage condition
in the Bolsa itself and thereby somewhat lessened its alkali content.

The presence of water in the eastern portion of the Bolsa region is manifest
in the landscape by the growth of sycamores and willows near the water courses
and by a heavy cover of sedges and other water loving plants in the swamp
areas. The absence of water in the westem part of the Bolsa region has resulted
in a treeless, monotonous appearance. Moreover, while most of the Bolsa is formed
by heavy textured soils, the northeastern, San Felipe Lake region consists of
recent alluvial loams which, were it not for the presence of alkali, would be
excellently suited to all kinds of intensive use. This means that thé boundary
here is very strongly marked between the alkali bearing, uninhabited, and the
alkali-free, well-settled Yolo loams. It means also that if further improvement of
drainage results in a material decrease of the obnoxious salts, settlement would
push most strongly forward here in the northeastern corner of the Bolsa. The
regions bordering the saltgrass lands to the southwest and southeast consist
of poorly drained clays and adobes unfavorable to fruit raising. Therefore the
landscape on these soils is one of open views, being almost solely composed of
dairy enterprises with here and there some vegetable and seed farms. The transi-
tion between the alkali pasture lands and the lands on its southern rim is thus
less sharp than that with the loams to the northeast and northwest of it; this fact
is also reflected in the size of the properties which south of the Bolsa are much
the same size as those in the alkaliflat itself.

By its character as pasture or, at best, hayland, the Bolsa itself contains
no agricultural enterprise units. Economically, it forms part of the dairy lands
that fringe it and of the stock ranches which, driven from the best Valley lands,
still retain a foothold here and on the Valley edges. As already mentioned, thé
dairies raise alfalfa and small grains; in the Southern Section they also depend
partly on the Bolsa pasture, especially in spring and summer when the soil is
sufficiently dry. The stock ranchers winter their cattle in the hills and then bring
them to the Bolsa for the dry season. They are pastured on lands owned by the
rancher or on rented tracts, sometimes stubble fields. In summer, after having
been fattened in feeding lots, the beef is sold to San Francisco and the eastern
markets. By its nature of a region subsidiary to the surrounding farm enterprises,
the Bolsa does not contain any structures except a few steel windmills to provide
the cattle with water. Barbed wire fences divide the tracts, here and there a
dark line of redwood fence sweeps over the plain indicating the boundary
line of a one-time large stock ranch. Apart from these manifestations of
! the change in size of properties, the Bolsa by its adverse natural environment
shows a persistence of landscape features which nowhere else in the Valley is
found so strongly.

Sharp divisions between landscape units seldom exist; usually there is a
transitional zone between adjacent areas of different usage. When such a belt
covers a relatively large region, it must be recognized as a distinct landscape,
combining the features of the adjoining units in a new pattern. It is the areal
manifestation of competition between different forms of land use and, as such,
reflects an interplay of forces more dynamic here than in the neighboring land-
scapes. The landscape units of diversified use throughout the Valley have it in
common that they posses a variety in pattern, but they differ in their individual
structure according to the forms of land use that mix in each of them. Natural
conditions — especially soils — play a large role in this respect, but other elements
en^in. For example, northwest of the Bolsa, between the fork of the railroads
and the Pajaro River, lies a district with a soil and climate well suited to horti-
culture but which until recently was part of a cattle ranch. Now that it is sub-
divided and being sold for orchard and truck farming, there results a mixed
assemblage of hay-grain fields, vegetable tracts and orchards; this is one of
the last areas of optimum environment which until so far has remained unoccupied.
Of the same nature are the changes in land use occurring in recent years on the
more elevated body of Yolo loams northeast of the Bolsa; here large pasture
and grain hay lands have been converted into more intensive usage. When the
estate of one of the former quot;cattle baronsquot; is sold, the remaining part of this
region will probably be turned to fruit and truck farming. The fact that these fertile
borderlands of the Bolsa have remained so long regions\' of extensive land utiliza-
tion obviously finds its explanation not in their adverse nature but in the fact
that they he adjacent to the alkah flat which, by its strong individual character,
transmitted to them its extensive land usage.

In addition to these areas where intensive farming has recently invaded
newly opened lands, there are three other units of diversified land use in the
Valley; these are mainly a direct result of the physical environment. It has
already been seen how the heavy-textured soils are opposed to the proper raising
of the main fruits, prunes and apricots. A local slogan well illustrates that the
growers are aware of this fact: quot;no pitted fruit on heavy soilsquot;. Therefore, while
the solid orchard formation halts sharp at the edge of the clays and clay adobes,
pears cross the line, forming orchard patches amidst the alfalfa, vegetable, and
berry fields. In the Northern Section pear orchards are densest on the Dublin
clays but peter out on the adobes near the Bay where strong winds and fogs
are adverse factors; so it is that near the Bay truck and dairy farms dominate
the landscape. The significance of the soil in determining the land use is well
demonstrated in the zone between the lower courses of the Guadelupe and the
Coyote where clay loams and loams have been deposited; here a mixed orchard
and small crops assemblage pushes as far north as Alviso, very proiTounced in
contrast to the quot;open landscapequot; on the adobes to either side.

East of Gilroy is another region having much the same combination of
small crops and orchards, but here, more than in the Northern bottomlands.

it is the effect of a great variety in soil types. Not more than a mile east of Gilroy
lies a flat area of about two miles square where the water from Llagas Creek
and other minor channels from the north is restricted by deposits from the
Carnadero Creek from the west, thereby causing a marshy area with adobe soil.
Most of this land is uncultivated, covered with a grass vegetation and with sedges
in and around the pools that in winter form in its center part. The edges of this
swamp are used for truck and seed crops which profit by the high water table
and also for alfalfa, the latter mainly where the soil is of less heavy con-
sistency. The higher portions to the east, with recent alluvial loams, are chiefly,
used for prune orchards, while on the elevated Valley edges along the foot of
the Mount Hamilton Range apricots are in the majority.

The thir4_unit of diversified landscape strongly determined in its pattern
by the nature of the soil is that in the middle part of the Central Section. Here
the old alluvial deposits of the Coyote fan have been only slightly eroded and
cover the entire Valley floor from five kilometers north of Morgan Hill to the
same distance south of this town. Weathering has caused here a leaching of the
topsoils and more or less compact subsoils, often with the accumulation of lime
and iron concretions. Fruit raising on these soils is possible but the production
usually does not reach the amount and quality of that on the recently transported
loams. Horticulture in the Central Section first began on the Yolo loams which
lie on its southern and northern extremities and only later invaded the poorer
soils in the center. When, in the nineties, the Morgan Hill and San Martin ranches
were subdivided, many Itahans settled on these cheaper lands; finding them
well adapted to grape culture and wanting quicker results than could be
had from slow maturing orchards, they started with viticulture, to which later
orcharding was added. Prohibition caused several vineyards to be replaced by
orchards, but the movement was checked when prices for quot;grape juicequot; began
to soar. Again in the recent years unsatisfactory market conditions have caused
many to change to prune and apricot raising.

On account of the variation in soil type and because of the economic shifts
now in progress, the land utilization of the Valley in the Morgan Hill vicinity
is very diversified. (Compare Map Xlb). The number of vineyards — mostly»
on the older transported soils — is still large enough to give this part of the
Valley a distinct character; besides pure vineyards are those interplanted with
young fruit trees, indicating a change in land use. Prunes do rather well on the
old transported soils of the Pleasanton group which are of gravelly character
and have relatively permeable subsoils; drainage here is good and the roots,,
penetrate fairly well. In this respect, the heavy textured and relatively imper-.
vious subsoils of the Pinole-Rincon group are inferior, especially for the prevaihng
French or Agen variety of prune. Because experience has taught that the so-
called Sugar Prune has a far greater adaptibility to this soil type, it has locally
become known as quot;Sugar Prune Soilquot; An additional problem in this district
is the difficulty in obtaining water for irrigation. The groundwater table has

rapidly lowered, and since the crop yields have been but medium, or even bad,
the farmers are afraid of going to the expense of deepening their wells.

In addition to these old transported soils there are here areas of recently
transported soils, unfit for most or all kinds of fruit raising. Fir$t of these are
the gravel zones along the Coyote River southeast of Perry\'s Station, a wide
uncultivated stretch separating the plantings, and second, the fine-textured
materials which have been deposited by the small creeks before they reach the
Coyote or the Llagas Creek. Of both areas considerable parts remain as more or
^ less improved haylands (photo 2 and 3).

Pears have been planted with success on these heavy-textured soils, but
prunes and apricots have proved very unsatisfactory here; what prune and apricot
orchards there are here illustrate again the invasion of such culture into marginal
areas. These lands, when subdivided during the fruit boom, were taken up by
many small growers, usually inexperienced, who started fruit raising only to
fmd after a few years that their efforts and investments resulted in failure.
Poultry raising is a fast growing interest here as it affords a much needed subsid-
iary means of income to these farmers.

The changed regional economic structure and growing density of population
have led to a rapid increase of the urban centers. Yet, not all agglomerations
have developed to the same degree. A comparison of the situation in the seven-
ties with that of the present can not be based alone on the size — that is, on the
number of inhabitants. All the population figures needed for this are not known.
Moreover, the importance of the towns and smaller clusters depends also on their
functional character in relation to the social-economic structure of the time.
Thus, the service centers in 1875 and those in 1930 are compared primarily
according to their functional rating at the two given dates, and secondarily on
their population. (See diagram, p. 150). For instance, Hollister of 1875 while
having fewer inhabitants than either Gilroy or Santa Clara, has been classed here
as a quot;chief townquot; because it was the economic node for the Southern Section
and the region well beyond and because it was the capital of San Benito County
These three quot;chief townsquot; of the seventies and also the local metropolis San Jose
have kept pace with the changed social economic structure of the Valley and
have retamed their rank as quot;chief townquot; up to the present. New towns have
quickly developed to this same functional standing, as have some of the old
small towns. Yet it is clear from the diagram that far from all of the old small
towns or service clusters have equally shared in the urbanization.

A reference to the favorable site zones of 1875 (p. 72 ff.) shows that the main
traffic artery through the Valley, the railroad-highway string, has remained
the paramount town-building factor, especially in the intensively developed
Northern Section. The four new quot;chief townsquot; all lie in this region on the main
traffic route. The northwestern foothill zone where mill sites were the first urban

DIAGRAM OF RATINGS FOR SERVICE CENTERS
in the Santa Clara Valley, 1875 and 1930.

tn tn
(U 4)

O O
O O

c t;

u
gt;

^ !S

gt; rt rt
C O

lt;x

c
cS

in I

Status in 1875 same as in 1930
Increased in status since 1875
Formed after 1875
Disappeared since 1875

centers is now a dense, mixed agricultural and residential settlement which has
given rise to Los Gatos, a well-equipped quot;chief townquot; on the branch line of
the Southern Pacific to Santa Cruz, and which has kept Saratoga alive and
given birth to Los Altos and Monte Vista. The relative importance of the different
site zones is also illustrated by the number of agglomerations in each. On the
primary route of communication are located all the larger towns, with the exception
of Los Gatos which lies where a branch of the main line enters the foothills.
Of the nine small towns, four are located on the chief traffic artery of the Valley,
three in the foothill belt, one stagnant (Alviso) on the Bay border and one,
Campbell, as the exception to the rule, between the foothills and the bottom-
lands.

Though the automobile may have brought important changes, it has not
taken over an important function of the railroads, namely, the long distance
transportation of bulk freight. Canneries and packing houses are always located
on railroads so as to make possible direct car load shipments (photo 14). Since
one of the primary necessities of a well-equipped town is its location on a rail- ,
road, all towns, without exception, are thus situated, though the three small
foothill towns are on. the electric suburban line which serves mostly as a
commuters\' conveyance.

After what has been said in previous chapters on the layout and structure
of the cities and towns, it will be sufficient here to note the salient points in the
present morphology of the population centers. The present settlements in the
Santa Clara Valley, by reason of their various functions — commercial, industrial,
social, residential — consist of a number of more or less defined zones. For San
Jose these could be schematically described as consisting of several rings of occu-
pance sites. In the center is the business distri^ of retail stores, banks, office
buildings, theaters and restaurants, all closely built together in solid rows along
the treeless, wide, auto-crowded streets. Surrounding this core is a belt of retail
stores, garages and other ligEt industries mixed with schools, churches, apart-
ment and duplex houses, each structure standing detached. Where this and the
inner circle touch the railroad, the city landscape is characterized by freightyards,
warehouses, lumberyards and other kindred industries. Further outside and
along the tracks are light industries and the laborers\' quarters. The outer ring
of the city is formed by purely residential areas, the high class suburbs with isolated
houses set on spacious grounds, usually secluded from the main thoroughfares,
and the smaller one-family houses also standing apart but situated on smaller
lots, often interspaced with stores and filhng stations along the highways and
stretching out from the city as ribbon settlements into the countryside.

1 he smaller cities and towns, of course, do not possess such a complete struc-
ture but m the mam they show the same urban lanscape. The business core of
each IS concentrated along the strategical parts of the main thoroughfare the
stone or stucco business structures forming closed rows; the second class retail
units and light industries are at the less busy extremes of this street, the older
structures often of white-painted wood and widely spaced. The canneries
lumber yards and warehouses are on the quot;back streetsquot; along the railroad tracks.\'
The high and low class residential districts are here also differentiated, but
not so markedly; apartment houses and hotels are comparatively few. Shade trees
along the straight streets and on the lawns give the residential districts a pleasing
appearance and stand in sharp contrast to the bare business center. The outskirts
of the town are broken by gardens and orchard lots, thus softening the transition
from town to countryside.

A generalized description must ignore many local deviations from the pattern,
deviations sometimes particularly characteristic for certain towns and instruc-
tive as areal expressions of the forces active in the life of- the Valley.
Yet, one of these features must be mentioned as a manifestation of one of the
present determinants which is strongly setting its mark on the landscape. It
will be remembered how in the Early American Period the business enterprises
moved from the stage road to more advantageous locations near the new railroad
depot (p. 97 ff.). The introduction of the automobile has completely reversed
this trend, bringing about a renaissance of the highway and directing business
back to the original traffic lanes. This did not mean much for a town like Gilroy
situated parallel to the rail and highway. It merely increased the value of lots
along the mam street-highway at other points than those opposite the depot

into decay, while the new structures -thebanks, stores, and theatre-are located
more northward along the main highway street. (See photo 19)

For towns such as Mayfield, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale situated be-
tween the highway and railroad, which two traffic hnes here lie a mile or so
apart the change in transportation has had a decided effect, if one considers the
cLparative recency of the automobile. The main street of each of these towns
connects these two traffic arteries at about right angles. In pre-motor days the
most thriving business units were concentrated at the depot end of this cross
road When the highway resumed its function as one of the main connections
between San Francisco and Southern California, the undeveloped part of the

To understand this phenomenon, there should be made a distinction
between the types of services performed by the railroad and by the highway.
The railroad has lost most of its local passenger trade, but has retained for a
good part its significance for the transportation of Bulk freight. The highway,
Lough more and more utihzed by the trucking business, serves in the mam for
passenger traffic. Thus the enterprises connected with bulk transportation -
the ware houses, lumber yards, canneries and packing plants - remain at the
railroad. Administrative and office buildings, churches, schools and such
services neither need nor prefer to be located on the traffic lines and therefore
are likely to be situated at some distance from both rail and road. The units
directly catering to the needs of the motorist are those which migrated to the
highway borders; so it is that the town lots adjacent to the highway have been
taLn possession of by restaurants, certain primary stores and elaborate auto-
mobile service stations. The recent zoning ordinance which opened the southern
part of Mountain View\'s main street for business settlement, is symptomatic
for this shift. Another case in point is that of San Martin in the Central Section
of the Valley. Early in this century it received its start when the cattle ranch
east of the railroad was sold in orchard tracts. A little hamlet developed there
at the railroad. Later, the cattle ranch west of the tracks and the highway was
also subdivided. Along the highway a service cluster has since sprung up and
now entirely overshadows the out-of-the-way stores on the other side of the
tracks The new residential quarter also lies west of the highway while the
scattered older habitations east of the tracks are hardly noticeable to the

and from southern California) which meet at right angles in the city center, San

Tose\'s highest building effectively placed at the junction (photo 18). Along these

two streets are all the high grade stores, the office and theater buildings, while

in the north and east sections of the city the development is lagging somewhat
behmd.

The change in means of communication, bringing the larger towns within
easy reach of the rural population, has had an adverse influence on the small
cross road settlements. Two and sometimes three major functions can be distin-
guished for these tiny clusters: supplying the primary physical wants of the neigh-
borhood; servmg as social community center; and, if there is a railroad depot
actmg as shipping point for agricultural produce. By comparing their tasks
today with those in former times the striking fact was revealed that while the
first function is more or less preserved, the social function is almost\'gone The
Sunday ride to the old time rural church took more time than does the
automobile trip to the better equipped church in town. While it is known that
earlier many small communities had churches — some of which are still standing
— today none of the clusters have services except Cupertino with two churches i)
The nature of recreation has also changed. Motoring, town theaters, dances and
clubs have replaced many of the old activities which had been centered at the
rural hall, school and church. Other factors besides the automobile have also
been responsible for the disappearance of many social institutions from the
country side. The old time American farmers\' group has drifted to the cities
the young people especially. There has been an influx of immigrants many of
them a racial type not readily assimilated, their presence breaking down the
social unity of the farmer\'s community and thus contributing to the abandon-
ment of the halls and churches.

The old type of one room schoolhouse has been replaced by large union
schools to which the children are transported by means of autobus While in
1874 there were 59 elementary schools in Santa Clara County, outside of San
Jose and Santa Clara, by 1916 increased to 90 schools, these were in 1930 con
centrated in only 34 schools 2). The most radical example of this change is Braly
once purely a social center consisting of two churches and one school (see map X^\'
and now entirely gone. Dunneville, located in the northeastern comer of the
Southern Basin, gives evidence that even the regional increase of population
has not caused it to rise as a local service center; it consists merely of a blacksmith
shop, a general merchandise store and one abandoned store, for Hollister and
Gilroy are well within shopping distance by motor car. Pacheco Corners (photo 16)
just west of Dunneville, once a social center, has lost its community functions,
retaining only the school. This is attended mostly by children ranging from
yellow to dark brown in coloring, witnesses to the statement of an old timer

There are also three quot;small townsquot; (as listed on p. 150) that have no churches• two of
these had one or more until about 1900; the third has had none for at least fifteen years

quot;) For 1930 the Palo Alto City School District has been also excluded as it stands at
present on one line with the urban district San Jose-Santa Clara.

that much has changed here in the make-up of the population, a fact to which
the abandoned community hall and church also give silent expression^

In most cases, however, the economic function of the service hamlets has been
preserved- they supply the neighborhood with primary, standard necessities such
L groceri;s, ^icfcan easily be stored and offer little variety. The general
merchandise store, pushed out of the towns by growing diversification, has
kept its own in several remote service centers. The new primary feature of
autoobile service, here as in all the towns, has become a very vital institution
and has often replaced the old blacksmith shop and also the saloon, for where
the service stations are on much travelled roads they are usually accompanied
by an eating place, separate or as a side branch to a station or grocery.
sLvice clusters located on railroads have lost a large part of their former function
as shipping points for local produce, as now much is transported by truck

Most of the service clusters are located on crossroads, a few on the mam
highway between the towns, and others scattered over the Valley on secondary
roads. In the sense of agglomeration, they range from a few white-painted, wooden
store structures, as at Dunneville and Fremont Corners, to hamlets such as
Evergreen. Agnew, and Cupertino, which consist each of five to ten stores and
a somewhat larger number of surrounding habitations. By their cluster form
these local settlements can be distinguished as a separate group from those
service units that are in direct relation to the transit automobile traffic along
the Pacific Highway. There are, of course, transitional forms of settlement
but in the main, the distinction between the local community cluster and the
ribbon agglomerations along the highway is clear enough in form as well as m

While the railroad by its nature focused trade at relatively few stations
along its route, the automobile road is over its entire length a potentml stopping
place open to commercial exploitation, though doubtless certain points such as
road crossings have strategical advantage. The result has been the development
of a special kind of traffic service settlements as off-shoots of the city pattern
along the inter-urban arteries. Thus, there has developed on the densest traveled
portfons of the Pacific Highway - between Santa Clara and MayfieM-Palo
Alto - a bordering frontage of drab, wayside architecture embellished with
blatant signs, each trying to catch a share of the incessant quot;metropolitan flow

A count on this twenty kilometer stretch revealed that there were 43 auto-
mobile service stations and garages, 31 eating places, 25 fruit stands (the census
was made in July) 10 stores, mostly groceries, and 6 motorist cabin camps, each
connected with one or another of the above mentioned services. Add to this
some goldfish hatcheries, dog kennels, and nurseries, fill in the gaps with orchards.

vegetable and berry fields, each usually with a residence set somewhat back
from the road, and one can visualize the special element such a highway
border forms in the landscape. The densest service agglomerations are situated
at points where the road from the center of Mountain View and that from Sunnyvale
(photo 20) enter the highway and on the site of reborn Old Mountain View. The
latter consists of 7 automobile service stations, 4 groceries, 2 eating places and
3 fruit stands. Such a string of roadside settlement also stretches from San Jose
south along the main highway for a short distance, while another l^nch,\\ut
more for the service of adjoining suburbs, lies due west of the city. The new six-
lane super highway, which runs partly off the old shore over the tidal flat from
San Francisco south as far as the west boundary of the Santa Clara Valley, will be
extended through the Valley, edging the new Naval Airbase north of Sunnyvale,
east through the lowlands south of Agnew and then north around the Bay to
Oakland i). Judging from the road slum that has sprung up along the completed
part of the highway on the San Francisco Peninsula, it may be expected that
such a settlement will be strung out along its length through the Santa Clara
Valley, its character even more pronounced than along the Camino Real, as no
orchard screen will hide it here.

A discussion of dwelling house types in this region must follow different
hnes than one of habitation forms carrying the tradition of remote times as in
Europe. The fixmg of a type is perhaps a phenomenon of the past, since easy
communication has abolished isolated culture development and since technique has
widened the means of adjustment. Yet, adaptation of housing to environment
— be It with less uniformity — eventually takes place, but it is a slow process
The Spaniards extended their rule to the northern ei^tranes of the quot;mediter-
raneanquot; climate of California, and thus settled in anquot; environment essentially
similar to that of their European habitat; therefore it was possible lor them
to graft their architectural heritage to the new region. Not so the Ameri-
cans who came from a humid climate into one sub-humid. Their conception
o agriculture had to be entirely revised and with it ideas concerning the size
of farm units and the types of necessary buildings. This was expressed first in
the lack or light construction of barns and sheds; the difference in climate was
not so great, however, as to compel an immediate and wholesale abandonment
of housing habits. Though American civilization had been stripped of many
traditions when it crossed the Plains and though tradition generally means
little to the American, it is only natural that the pioneer society should build its
dwelling houses on memories of the patterns it had been accustomed to in the East.

Up to the preset there are still very few bridges over the Coyote and Guadelupe
Rivers in this lowland region; north of San Jose in the Bay borderlands no road leads straight
irom east to west. The new planned highway will supply this connection. It may be added
that much of the traffic between the San Francisco Peninsula and the East Bay Shore goes
by way of the San Mateo and Dumbarton toll bridges over the narrow southern part of San
i^rancisco Bay just north of the area indicated on the maps of this paper.

C^mm™ rthe ll (photo 11). This house form was probably introduced
ZuU88o7Ld tho^f outdated, is stiE built because of its simple structure.

from the front porch which was overcapped by a gabled sub-roof. Wrth the
te« to ll one-story buildings, the houses constructed later usually lack

itlhetriecrde of the twentieth century new ideas in archtoture d^-
placed the vScal mode of building; the low pitched rorf, wide ™dows and
En amines, as expressed in the bungalow type, rap.dlrgamed popularity^
to Ihe Centol Section of the Valley, where so many fruit farms were created

r^ New Historical Atlas of Santa Clara County of 1875 does not
picJe omifrypquot; the Historical Atlas of San Benito County for 188gt; coatains one.

22. Modern residence in ■•neo-moditernineanquot;
style. (Published by courtesv of the San Tose
Chamber of Commerce). quot;

in the first decade of this century, the bungalow is noticeably prevalent (photo 21) ;
the same is true of recently developed residential districts. The fact that urban
residences in the United States, and particularly in the West, are almost always
built apart, each on its own lot, makes one style for rural and urban houses
far more common than in Europe or even in the old East of the United States.

Of the house types that set their mark on the Santa Clara Valley landscape,
the last addition received its impetus from the Panama-Pacific Exhibition held
in San Francisco in 1914. In a way, one may speak of this fact as a symbol of the
rediscovery of Hispanic culture in California. In the last twenty, or perhaps
thirty years, there has developed a great interest in the California of Spanish
days. This is shown in the names of new towns, as quot;Los Altosquot; and quot;Monte Vistaquot;
(in imitation of its old valley counterpart. Mountain View), in the names of coun-
try homes and in the restoration of the surviving Spanish mission buildings i)
and Mexican ranch houses. The exhibition of 1914 demonstrated to the Americans
the excellent possibilities of the Spanish-Mexican architecture with its heritage
of adjustments to the quot;mediterraneanquot; climate. This house-type, modified by
modern requirements and building materials, has strongly developed in California,
the Santa Valley having many more or less successful specimens of these houses.
The bright color scheme of the white stuccoed walls and red-tiled, low over-
hanging roofs makes a striking effect under the blue sky and sharp sunlight. Some
of the better houses are even built around a quot;patioquot;, or inner court, with iron
wrought gates, an arrangement in decided contrast to the open yard plan of the
traditional American habitation (see photo 22). Many stores and other business units
have also acquired a somewhat quot;Spanishquot; appearance by a queer admixture of
baroque and modern motives. The mediterranean style is most noticeable in the new
residential sections of greater San Jose, Palo Alto, and in the town and country
houses of the foothill belt.Most of the new school houses are also in this style.

Farm houses of this character are rather an exception; a new farmer will
hardly start with investing large sums in this expensive house type and the
older, well-to-do farmers build their fashionable houses in town. Therefore, the
most common house forms of the country side are still the wooden, hip-roofed
house and the stucco or wooden bungalow. This does not mean that the average
farmer lives in backward conditions. The intimate contacts between city and
country, as has been repeatedly stressed on the foregoing pages, together with
the Californian farmer\'s relative prosperity, have kept him well on the level
of urban standards of living. Thus, in 1930, 45 % of the farms in Santa Clara
County had telephones, 85 % had water piped into the house, 70 % had running
water in the bathrooms and 74 % had electric lighting. The living conditions
of many Oriental laborers and itinerant pickers, among whom are numerous
Mexicans, are, however, often very poor. The rough wooden shacks (photo 23),
or worse, the camps where the temporary fruit pickers\' population lives, are
landscape manifestations of a most undesirable social issue.

The chapel of the former Santa Clara Mission, now a part of Catholic Santa Clara
College, is restored, as is the Mission San Juan Bautista west of Hollister.

The quot;good roadsquot; movement which set in after the automobile came into
use has resulted in a fine spun road web throughout the Valley, especially in the
densely settled orchard sections; by now most of the farms are located on im-
proved roads. In 1930 the length of the roads in Santa Clara County, cities exclu-
ded, was 1120 miles, which means a density of 0.8 per square mile. As a consid-
erable area of the County consists of mountainous country where few roads are
necessary, the density for the Valley itself is much higher, perhaps even two
road miles to the square mile. The fact that most of the asphalt and macadam
roads, though rather small in total mileage, lie in the closely-settled orchard
sections explains the relatively large number of farms located on these better types
of roads. On the average there are 11.3 farms to one mile of asphalt road, 8 farms
to one mile of macadam road. The construction of concrete pavement is used
more with an eye on through traffic than local settlement and therefore has a
lower number of farms per mile, namely, 5.3. The gravel roads, though forming
one third of the total road mileage, are found especially in the less populous
districts, as is evidenced in the rate of 5.3 farms to one mile of gravel road. The
average rate for improved dirt roads is lowest of all. but 1.7. On the other hand,
an average of 5.5 farms to one mile of unimproved dirt road is rather high but
loses somewhat of its weight when one considers that there are only 125 miles
of this kind of road in the County (11 % of the total mileage) and that a large
part of it is in the mountains and back comers of the Valley.

In spite of local differences in pattern, the Santa Clara Valley forms a unit /
by reason of its intensively utilized valley floor, defined strongly against the I
surrounding mountains and the marsh belt of San Francisco Bay. Along these
boundaries there is an interplay of forces, radiating from both sides and makmg
the border landscapes an integral part of the Santa Clara Region. After what
has been said in the introductory chapters, it will be sufficient to state here only
their functional significance in relation to the Valley and the manner in which
this is expressed in their present utilization.

Both of the mountain ranges, east and west, are of the greatest importance
to the Valley as a source of water supply. By their height above sea level, as well
as by their extensive watersheds, they receive a large amount of precipitation.
Climatic conditions prevent, however, the formation of a snow cover during
the winter; thus the water runs off rapidly from the barren Diablo Range
and from the partially deforested Santa Cruz Range, part of it percolating
into the underground gravel layers of the Valley but the greater share draining
off superficially to the ocean. Powerful though man\'s activity has been
in changing the character of the Valley, his interference with the natural water
regime until so far has been limited to a negative measure, and in the mountains
to almost nothing — a striking discrepancy when one realizes how largely the
present and future economic structure of the Valley depends on a far sighted

to find strong dams storing the valuable water supply in artificial lakes. On the\'

the rejection of the 1931 conservation project means that this situation will not
soon change.

As indicated on the schematic map of landscape types, three mountain
patterns can be distinguished in this region: the uninhabited, grasss covered
Diablo Range; the uninhabited, wooded ranges of the Santa Cruz and Gabilan
Mountains adjacent to the Central and Southern Sections of the Valley; the
north front of the Santa Cruz Mountains, wooded in the main and containing
residential and agricultural settlements.

The boundary of the Valley to the east is formed by the Mount Hamilton
division of the Diablo Range; though not high, its solid front range, backed
by parallel ridges, is unbroken except for the few rivers which find their way
through. There are only two passe.s connecting the Santa Clara Region with
the San Joaquin Valley beyond these mountains: one just north of the Valley,
via the Mission San Jose, and through the Livermore Valley; the other from thé
Southern Section east of San Felipe Lake, following Pacheco Creek up to Pacheco
Pass over the narrowest part of the Diablo Range at about 490 meters above
sea level.

Intensive land utilization on the Valley side of this mountain belt is limited
to that portion east of the Northern Section where there are rolling slopes with
dales between rounded foothills and flatter ridge crests, covered with a residual
layer of clay loams and adobes averaging in thickness about one meter on the
parent rock of soft sandstones and shales. Here, northeast and east of Milpitas,
track farming_extends well into the front range. Beans are the most cultivated
crop. The fogs which frequently hang over the east shore of San Francisco Bay
reach also this area and bring sufficient moisture to allow successful cultivation
Moreover, beans thrive by diffused rather than direct sunlight i). East of
Berryessa and on both sides of Evergreen the remnants of former terraces consist
mainly of soils of the Pleasanton group: old alluvial materials, strongly weathered
and with rather compact subsoils. In such locations, scattered orchards and
vineyards extend from the Valley up the mountains while the steep slopes
with thin soil cover are used for hay grain fields or are left in wild oats.

Along the eastern border of the Central Section the front range rises as an
unbroken, steep ridge with barren, thin residual soils barring tillage. Its grass
cover with clumps of brush in the ravines is the domain of cattle ranches which
stretch far back in the mountain mass. Here, in contrast to the Northern Section
boundary, there is a pronounced difference between the utihzation of the valley

floor and that of the mountain front (see map XI6). The valley lands, all sub-
divided into farms, abut with fences knife sharp against the foot of the range.
The mountains are not quot;back lotsquot; of the farms but are part of an entirely
different economy — one of the most marked evidences of the transmutations
that have occurred here in the last seventy-five years.

In the Southern Section this eastern border presents a situation which is,
in a sense, the exact reverse of that in the Northern Section. The wide zone of
old alluvial soils that lies as a northwestward-sloping terrace between the moun-
tain range and the recent alluvial soils of the bottomlands, is still mostly in
the hands of stock ranchers. Though orcharding and seed-truck raising have
increased here in the last decade, their development is limited by the deep-lying
ground water table and by the soil which is mostly of non-calcareous and heavy-
textured character with compact and relatively impervious subsoil. Most of
this region is used for pasture and to some extent for the raising of small grains
forhay by dry-faming methods, the fields lying fallow every other year. Therefore,
the orchards which form the outer ring of intensive land utihzation around the
Bolsa flat gradually thin out to the east into a stretch of grasslands with scattered
evergreen oaks and occasional ranch houses. This area between the orchard
belt and the rolling foothills of the grass covered Diablo Range is at least a mile
in width.

It is hardly necessary to say that pure residential settlement is very small
in the uninviting Mount Hamilton Range. While the Central and Southern Valley
Sections are strictly agricultural and thus may be omitted from the discussion,
the matter would seem to lie different with the more urbanized northern portion
of the Valley. Yet, the houses that dot the front of the Mount Hamilton Range
east of San Jose are relatively few in comparison to the residential settlement
before the Santa Cruz Mountains. At first sight the cause of this striking difference
may seem to be the proximity and good connections of San Francisco to the ƒ
Santa Cruz foothills; still, this does not explain why San Joseans prefer the west-
em hill country above the eastern, though the latter is nearer to their city.
Railroad connections, too, may have played a part, a factor which is today of [
less importance than in pre-auto days. Recently a plan has been started to
divide some of the lower slopes of Mount Hamilton Range, east of San Jose, into
home sites which measure perhaps points in this direction. The main reason why
there has been so little settlement at the foot of the Mount Hamilton Range j
seems to be that it offers less attractive home sites than does the wooded, broken I
Santa Cruz Range.

Also for outings the Diablo Range is less favored than the Santa Cruz. To
be sure, there are mountain roads leading to the Alum Rock Canyon resort, to
the Lick Observatory on top of Mount Hamilton and to certain springs deep
in the mountains. Yet, the grass and chaparral covered ranges offer far less attrac-
tive scenery than do the more bold mountain regions to the west; partly as a
result of this, the roads in the Mount Hamilton Range are few and rough, without
connections, thereby severely limiting the possibilities for round trips and recrea-
tional drives.

The Santa Cruz Range, in the agricultural utilization of its lower slopes
shows in the main the same differences for the three sections of the Valley as
described for the Mount Hamilton division of the Diablo Range. In the Northern
Section intensive agriculture has invaded parts of the foothills; in the Central
Section the cultivated valley floor is in sharp contrast to the mountain pasture-
lands; in the Southern Section the stock range extends far out into the Bolsa
flat.

In the Central Section the Santa Cruz Mountains do not form such an un-
broken wall as does the opposite range. Several stream courses — the Llagas,
the Uvas and the Carnadero Creeks — enter the main Valley with tributary
valley floors of about a mile in width. This makes for a number of hill groups,
covered with grass, a few oaks and laurels; the branch valleys between these
detached-appearing hills extend back into the mountain country for some
miles and are planted to orchards and vineyards; but here too this intrusion of
agriculture in the mountain regions is limited to the alluvial material of the bottom-
lands. The hills rise steep from the valleys, covered only with thin residual
weathering, entirely unfit for tillage.

In the Bay Region, the division between extensive and intensive forms of
land utihzation is less definitely marked. It has already been observed that the
orchards occupy the foothill region where recently deposited Yolo gravelly loams
form the higher parts of the creek fans and even where the rolling topography
and a deep-lying water table make irrigation impossible (see p. 138). Above
these recent alluvial fan deposits, at a height of 75 to 125 meters above sea level,
lies a narrow belt of reddish brown soils — of the Pleasanton type —, a remnant
of the old valley fill, also found in small bodies at the base of the Mount
Hamilton Range. These soils, with a rolling to hilly topography, are usually
quite tillable, though — apart from irrigation difficulties — orcharding is more
difficult and less successful here because of the heavier subsoils. North of Saratoga
a large body of these old alluvial loams are planted to apricots and prunes;
there are even some orange and lemon groves here which do well because of thé
warm belt. Grapes, which need no irrigation, are even better adapted to this
soil type; thus, on these terrace remnants at the very foot of the Range, one finds quot;
a number of vineyards. These have found here a quot;refugequot; since the days when
the grape industry was pushed from the Yolo loams by the combined forces
of the fruit boom and the phylloxera epidemic. Part of the Pleasanton soils are
also in pasture or hay grains.

More and more this undulating foothill region is being taken for residential
settlement. The strip south of the railroad Monte Vista—Los Altos is almost
entirely occupied by or destined for home sites. The reason for the increasingly
populous settlement here is obviously the scenic attractions — grassy knolls
wooded canyons, and beautiful views over the Valley — combined with a very
agreeable climate and easy access to the urban centers. This foothill district
has a distinctive pattern as a landscape unit, its numerous country houses and

educational, social and civic institutions, all with well-planned gardens,
situated amidst wild oat grazing tracts, vineyards, orchards, and wooded groves.
At the foot of this belt, the orchards stretch across the Valley in almost unbroken
formation, and above it rises the mountain-country.

Where the steep-sloped, deep-cayoned range front begins there is a propor-
tional decrease in tillable land, for erosion has considerably broken the old
alluvial deposits, leaving only a few rather smooth terrace surfaces with adobe
soils. Such areas are in part used for vineyards, but mostly for pasture, as is the
deeper mountain region.

It has already been noted that the Santa Cruz Range offers quite a different
aspect than does the Diablo Range. Lying within reach of the ocean winds, the
vegetation is not limited to a chaparral grass-cover, but consists of a dense
brush and forest vegetation. While the slopes on the Valley side of the Santa
Cruz Mountains have been almost stripped of their former fir stand, the ocean yh^
side still has — though not unbroken — splendid forests with Redwood and
Douglas fir as the predominating species. The thousand acre State Redwood \\
Park deep in the mountains with its impressive redwood giants is the paramount \\
attraction of the Range. In cut-over regions a mixture of hardwoods and chapar-
ral woodland has developed. The variations in vegetational cover, and the rugged
character of the topography, have made the Santa Cruz mountains of great
attraction to the Valley inhabitants.

The Santa Cruz Mountains have several peaks rising more than 900jneters
above sea level (Loma Prieta, the highest point 3,806 feet above sea level). On
the north and east sides of this mountain group lies the Santa Clara Valley, on
the south the Pajaro River Valley, on the southeast Monterey Bay and to the west
the Pacific Coast. The several beach resorts are sufficient inducement for people
to enter and cross the mountains; a well-developed and excellent highway system
has been swung through the mountains, connecting with the highways in
bordering valleys and offering a wide choice of motor routes. Moreover, there is no
seasonal limit for traveling, as no snow blocks the roads in winter and no ex-
cessive cold mars the boasted quot;all year motoring climatequot;.

In the Early American Period when traveling was still relatively cumber-
some, it was possible for a hotel, as that at Saratoga Springs, to serve as a fash-
ionable resort where guests would stay for an extended period. The modern means
of travel have done away with this; a hotel on the edge of the Valley has no func-
tion since the Sunday ride has come into vogue and the Valley residents look
for far more exciting and extensive trips in vacation time. Small resorts, each
consisting of an eating place, some tourist cabins and picnic grounds, and
located somewhere in a canyon or on a scenic ridge point, fulfill the needs of the
motoring holiday crowds. It may be expected that the function of the Santa
Cruz Mountains as recreation territory will continue to be developed with the
increase of the Bay Region population.

The northern border of the Santa Clara Valley is formed by extensive salt
marshes which fill most of the southern end of San Francisco Bay. The reclamation
of this area could, it seems, be executed without great difficulties, though in this
semi-arid climate the leaching out of the salt would present more of a problem
than in a country like Holland. That such a project does not become an issue
IS to be accounted for by the lack of population pressure; it is probable that
not for a long time to come will this area be made an integral part of the Valley i)

Still, the present boundary between marsh and mainland is not the same
as formerly, nor is the marsh an entirely useless region. At several points along
the interior limit of the salt flat, tracts have been diked and where possible
(near the Coyote and Stevens Creek sloughs) use has been made of fresh flood
waters to leach out the salt. The reclaimed lands prove to be well suited for the
raising of barley for hay. Locally, dump material is used to raise the land level
and to drive back the marsh. Outside the low levees, the higher parts of the
tidal flats are in spring and summer used for pasturing cows on the vegetation
of pickleweed and salt grasses.

Since early American days the marsh has been used for salt making. Orig-
inally there existed a number of individual, small scale industries but today
the salt industry around San Francisco Bay has been monopolized by two com-
panies, which have centralized their plants on the southern end of the east Bay
shore (near Alvarado in Alameda County) just north of the Santa Clara Valley
Here the water has a higher salt concentration than the Bay at large because
the bottleneck connection between the central and southern basins of the Bay
keeps it from being diluted by the fresh floodwaters from the surrounding shore^l
and from the outflow of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. Moreover,!
the steady winds, which especially during summer afternoons blow towards thé
Valley, accelerate evaporation. Since the salt industry has become established
in the up-to-date production plants on the eastern shore, the salt pans lying
about a mile out from the shore line of the Santa Clara Valley west of Alviso and
covering an area of three thousand acres, have practically fallen into disuse
The large surface which has been shut off by the salt pond levees has in-
creased the height of the tidal overflow on other parts of the area. Moreover,
as a result of the recent dry years and of the lowering ground water table, thé
creeks have brought less fresh water over the marshland than formerly. \'The
effect of this is that the flats are becoming increasingly salty. It is reported that
lands, ten years ago well suited to grazing, are now entirely useless. The tidal

1) Evidence of early interest in the reclamation of the marsh region is shown by an
article which appeared in the Transactions of 1873 (390 ff). It was proposed to build a dike
through the narrow connection between the southern basin of the Bay and its central part
and to reclaim the 48.000 acre area south of it, which, it was suggested, could be freed from
salt by water from the rivers and from a number of artesian wells. About this time an effort
was made on a small scale to reclaim certain parts of the marshes, but the alarming lowering
of the water table in the Valley lands caused suit to be brought against the enterprising individ
uals who were forced to abandon the work. See History of Santa Clara County 143

action of the Bay which pushes saline water upstream into the creek sloughs
is counteracted by the amount of stream flow. By the combined effects of the
prolonged period of dry years and the pumping for irrigation, the fresh water
volume in the lower creek courses in summer has been insufficient to check
the invasion of saline water, as was the case before. The matter has not yet
reached a critical stage like that of the delta lands of the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Rivers i), but in time measures will have to be taken to prevent a pene-
tration of saline waters into the cultivated bottomlands of the Valley.

At the same time it is very clear that the sloughs are gradually silting up.
The causes of this process were not sufficiently investigated to justify any con-
clusions; perhaps one reason is that the Bay water, being less diluted by fresh
water from the creeks, causes a greater flocculation and sedimentation of the
silt particles near the mainland. Residents pointed out that this silting-up may
be due to a change in the tidal streams since the construction of the bridges
over the southern basin of the Bay.

As a traffic medium, the Bay means at present nothing to the Valley. Where
once ships came up to the landings one finds but shallow, mud-filled channels;
the harbor of Alviso, once the main port of the Valley, now only serves as a
yachting harbor and for this it is hardly deep enough (photo 17). Except for
a few small boats that ply the Bay from the quot;South Shore Harborquot; — a basin
connected with the deep water by a dredged channel — the southern part of
the Bay is a recreation area for yachters. At present the Bay forms a swampy ^
back wash, not a door to the world\'s commerce.

All ocean traffic, not only that for Central California but also for its vast
hinterland, is handled at the docks of San Francisco and Oakland. As trade
expands with the Pacific countries and with Europe through the Panama Canal,
the growing metropolitan district around the Bay will be in need of other harbors,
even though they would be but of local significance. As far as the Santa Clara
Valley is concerned, it seems as if all attention has been concentrated on the
development of the interior, leaving no interest in the advantages which its
favorable position at America\'s best Pacific port might offer. Only very recently
are there signs of an understanding of the potential relation between the Santa
Clara Valley and the Bay. The intention is to establish a deepwater port (Port
San Jose) at a point about where the mouths of the Guadelupe and Coyote Sloughs
meet. The dredged material will be used to reclaim marsh lands for the establish-
ment of industrial enterprises and for the building of railway and highway
connections between the Port and the Valley. This project is being planned to
provide cheaper transportation for the Santa Clara Valley by enabling ocean
vessels to load canned and dried fruits directly at the Valley\'s door and by
facilitating the coast and intra-port trade of lumber, petroleum products, sugar
and other articles. It may be that the reclaimed area will also become the
nucleus of industrial settlement.

In still another way is the Valley being linked more closely with the San Fran-
cisco Bay Region. By its nature, this district is one of the main bases for national
defense on the Pacific Coast. While until recently the army and navy activities

chmatic as well as strategic position of the northwestern corner of the Santa
Clara Valley has caused it to be chosen for the establishment of the principal
United States Airship Base on the Pacific Coast. A level pasture land situated
on the Bay border west of Sunnyvale has recently been selected as a site for this
important federal enterprise. It will mean a powerful stimulus for the develop-
ment of the Bay borderlands, particularly if far-flung hopes come true and the
Sunnyvale airbase becomes also the Pacific home port of commercial trans-
Pacific airship services.

The population growth of San Francisco from 1920 till 1930 was 25 per cent,
a rate only exceeded by two other large cities in the United States — Los Angeles
(114 per cent) and Detroit (58 per cent) — both strongly influenced by a booming
development of a few special industries which may abate soon. The population
of the nine counties around the Bay increased since 1920 with 33 per cent, a
figure indicating a more rapid accretion outside of San Francisco than in the
city proper. Whereas the counties north of the Bay, except for the residential
development of San Marin opposite San Francisco, grew only at a small rate
(Napa, 10.4 per cent; Solano, 0.6 per cent; Sonoma, 19.5 per cent), it is obvious
that the gain in population was mainly concentrated in the southern half circle
of the bay borderlands. With the further expansion of the metropolitan region
and after the eastern bay shore has been more intensively utilized, there seems
little doubt that the bay rim of the Santa Clara Valley will become an integral
part of the quot;conurbationquot; around San Francisco Bay. Considering this, the
future landscape of the Valley may add to its agricultural, urban and rural-
residential types an industry and port area along the Bay Border Yet to
keep its present rank in horticulture and to acquire the potential industrial
development, one thing above all others is required - water. This remains
the mam issue in this semi-arid country: the fate of the SantTQara Valley rests
on the measures which the occupying group will take to guarantee for future
requirements an adequate and economical water supply.

^^^^U.s. Dept. of Agriculture, Office of Experiment Stations, Bui. 254 (Santa
Clara Valley 67—70, with map of irrigation development west of San Jose).

Annual Report of the Board of State Viticultural Commissioners, for
the years 1880, 1889-\'90, 1891-\'92, 1893-94. San Francisco 1881-94.
See also- Report (Annual) of the Chief Executive Viticultural Officer to
the Board of Vitic. Comm. for 1881 and 1882-\'84. Report of the 6th Annual
State Viticultural Convention, etc. Sacramento 1888.

Part I, the Physical Basis of Agriculture, Section E, Natural Vegetation.
Grassland and Desert Shrub by H. L. Shantz; Forests by R. Zon,
U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Bureau of Agr. Economics, Advance sheets.

Bartlett, J R. Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas,
New-Mexico, California, Sonora and Chihuahua, connected with the
U.S. and Mexican Boundary Commission during the years 1850—1853.
New York, London, 1854. 2 vols., with map and illus.
Batchelor, L. D. Walnut Culture in California. Revised Ed. by L. D.
Batchelor and 0. L. Braucher. Berkeley 1929.
Agr. Exp. Sta., Coll. of Agr., U. of Cal., Bui. 379.

Bioletti, F. F. and E. H. Twight. Report on the Condition of Vineyards
in Portions of the Santa Clara Valley. Berkeley 1901.

Bolton, H. E. The Mission as a Frontier Institution in the Spanish-American
Colonies.

Boone, L. R. The History of the Santa Clara Valley; The Spanish Period
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Botany [The] of the Voyage of H.M.S. Sulphur, under Command of
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Average Number of Days with 0.01 Inch or More Precipitation ....nbsp;22
Table of Mean Monthly and Annual Precipitation at Stations in or near

Acreages of Crops and Irrigated Land in Santa Clara County, 1860—1930.nbsp;106
Acreages of Crops and Irrigated Land, in Percentages of Improved Land

The Development of Irrigation in Santa Clara County, 1890—1930 . .nbsp;118
Annual Variation of Precipitation in Santa Clara Region, 1881—1930,
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Persons Ten Years Old and Over Engaged in Gainful Occupations for Main

I General Topographic Map of the Santa Clara Valley . . . Plate I
II Distribution of Soils \\

On Map I, Plate I, the following service centers have been mistakenly
marked as towns: Old Gilroy, Madrone, Edenvale, Evergreen, Berryessa,
Agnew, Cupertino, Warm Springs.

Unfortunately, the symbols for land utilization have not been carried
through consistently oh the three Sample Maps (X, XI, XII).

Absentee ownership, 125, 139, 142
Adobe brick, 47 ff, 100
Adobe soil, 48, 76 f, 94, 138, 145, 147
Agnew, 82, 92, 155

Air base, 155, 165
Air drainage, 21, 22, 24
Alameda County, 66, 77, 163
Alameda (road), 49, 96, 99
Alder trees, 29

Artesian wells. 26. 82. 115, 118 f, 143
Automobiles. 15, 102. 105, 130. T 134, 144,

Barley, 64, 78, 104. T 106. 145
Barns, 15. 79—81, 89 f. 144
Bartlett. J.R., 32
Bay borderlands, see Marsh belt
Beans. 48, 159
Beechey, F.W., 52 f
Bees, 50. 140
Ben Lomond. 23

Berries, 15. 67, 69, 81 f, 114. 140
Berryessa, 87, 159
Bethlehem, 98
Bidwell. J.. 76

Boundaries or border regions, 11. 136, 158
Building materials, 48 ff, 90 ff, 100

Calabazas Creek, 31
California State Forest Service, 30
Campbell, 22, 74, 119, 121
Canneries, 15. 19, 132, T 134, T 135, 142,

of the Mexicans, 39 ff. 45
Commerce, Spanish-Mexican, 38 ff, 51. 55 f;
Early American, 55 f, 63 ff; Recent Amer-
ican, 149 ff. 164 f
Connnunity functions, disappearance of, 130,

Competing fruit regions, 110, 137
Cooper. W.S.. 30
Cottonwood. 29
Cover crops, 141

Coyote Narrows. 14—16, 29, 96, 121
Coyote River, 15, 17, 21, 121, 149; bottom-
lands, 137, 142, 163
Coyote Station, 16. 91 f
Cronise, T.F., 79
Crop rotation. 78. 144
Cupertino, 92, 153, 154

Dairy industry, buildings, 142—144; devel-
opment of, 63—81; districts, 17, 106;
equipment, 105, 144; products, 63, 81, 93,
106; tenantry, 63
Diablo Range. 11, 14—16, 21, 29, 53, 121 f,

Drainage system, 17 , 20, 119, 121 f, 158 f
Driveways, 15 f, 88, 144, 156
Drought, 62, 80, 82

Dry farming, beginnings of 82; principle and
practice, 82 f, 115 f, 140, 160
Drying of fruits, 18, 112, 140;\' to utilize sur-
plus, 67; dehydraters, 68. 91. 92, 132 ff,
T 134, 142; methods, 113, 142; drying yards,

Embarcaderos, 51
Encomienda system, 35
Energy belts, 72—75
Engelhardt, Z., 52
Erosion, 30, 31, 79, 148, 162
Eucalyptus, 15. 89
Evergreen. 92, 97, 154, 159

Fages, Don Pedro, 28
Fans, alluvial, 25, 26, 31, 32, 83, 121, 122
136, 138, 142, 161
Farm implements, 50 ff, 65 f, 105
Farm products, vahie per acre, 103, T 104
Farm types, 15, T 104
Faults, 20
Feed yards, 80, 81

Fences, cost of, 61; influences of, 61 ff, 79;
material, 17, 48, 50, 61. 62, 80, 88; s^irvi-
vals of early times, 16, 139, 146
Fertihzer, 78, 141
Figuera, Governor Jose, 41
Fires, Indian, 32; in relation to chaparral, 30
Flax, 70

Flour mills, 52, 56, 66, 93
Fog, 12, 20, 25, 80, 129, 143, 159
Foothill belt, for vineyards, 83. 108; mill
sites, 72. residence district, 12, 74. 129,
130, 138, 161, 165; warm belt, 24. 83 f;
original vegetation, 77 ff; irrigation, 22, 138
Forbes. A., 50

Franco-German War, influence on viticulture,
69; on silk industry, 70
Fremont, Colonel C., 53
Fremont Corners, 154
Frosts, 18, T 24, 83, 137, 138, 141
Fruit growing, early development, 81, 114—
117, 136; location of, 82, 83. 109, 137, 144
Fruit ranches, 102 ff, T 104, 125, 139 ff
Fruit trees, statistics for, 103, 109. 112;

Gilroy Hot Springs, 74
Gold, discovery of, 54 ff 76 ff
Gold seekers, 12. 13. 54 ff; food for, 13,
54, 56, 60, 66, 68, 76
Golden Gate, 21, 25 f, 28
Grain Farming, 49, 63—66, T 104; see also

wheat, barley
Grants, 41 ff; number of, T 43, 44; change of
ownership 56 ff, T 57. breakdown of, 79,

Grapes, see Viticulture
Great Interior Valley, Sacramento, 112; San
Joaquin, 18, 21, 56, 61
Ground squirrel (Tamias). 77
Ground water, 13. 22. 26. 115 ff. 118 ff,
T 120. 138, 143, 145 f. 158, 159, 161. 163
Guadelupe River (Creek), 14, 39, 40, 49. 82,
161; bottomlands, 137, 142 ff

Harvest seasons, 18, 19, T 135, 140
Hay and forage 18, 78, 79. 81. 104, 105,
T 106, 143, 144, 161

Hendry, G. W., 52
Hetch Hetchy Project, 122
Highways, 15-17, 31; Alameda. 94. 96;
Camino Real 12, 36. 49, 50, 72, 94, 95;
Pacheco Pass, 18; Pacific 16, 17. 18;
Winter Road, 94, 95; along survey lines,
86; the road pattern, 62. 94—96. influence
on towns, 97—100, 146. 149. 150 f. 154 f;
mileage and types, 16. 158; toll roads, 96;

Indians, 28, 32, 33; Spanish policy for, 35,
39, 47, 52; Mexican policy for, 41
Industries, diversification of, 15, 36 f, 70 ff,
101 ff, 123, 129 ff, 132 ff, T 134, 151
Intercropping, 114, 140
Irrigation, early practices, 82; artesian wells,
82; ground water, 13, 117, 163; flood water,
115, 117, 119 ,T 107; electric power, 119,
140; windmills, 140; areas, T 106, T 118;
unirrigahle areas, 138; methods, 140 f;
Spanish Mexican, 37, 48 ff; see Water

Land system, Spanish, 40 ff, 45; Mexican
41 ff, 54 f; Earlv American, 57 f; present,

Landscape, 8 f, 14 ff; types of, 136 ff
Law suits, 57, 60
Lettuce, 18, 143
Lemons, 161

Lick Observatory, 23, 160
Livermore Valley, 21, 159
Livestock, see horses, cattle, sheep
Llagas Creek, 16, 17
Lomerias Muertas, II, 18, 94, 144
Los Altos, 129, 157, 161
Los Gatos, 12, 22, 74, 93, 98, 129, 130
Lumber industry, 30, 72, 74. 89, 93

European, 107, 108; Pacific countries 56
Marsh belt, 15 f; riverdeposits2Q,2Q] appear-
ance, 15, 29; function, 51, 72, 73, 162—
165; reclamation, 8Q, 162 ff; soil conditions
94, 96; as landscape type, 136, 162—64.
Mayfield, 97, 98, 129, 152.
Menlo Park, 23
Merced Valley, 21

^Mexicans, recent immigrations, 19, 102
Mexican republic, colonization policy 39 ff
Miller\'s Canal, 145
Milpitas, 15, 92, 97
Mineral Springs, 73, 74
Mining districts, 53 ff, food for, 63. 76
Missions, Santa Clara, 36 ff, 44 ff, 48 f, 52
San Juan Bautista, 36. 41, 53, 99
San Jose, 51

San Francisco de A sis, 35. 36, 38
Mission, Indian policy 36, 39
Mission supplies, 36, 37

methods, 52 ff
Modern inventions, 102, 130, 157
.Moncada, Don Fernando Rivera y, 28
Monte Bello Ridge, 20
Monterey Bay, 17, 25,\'28, 162
Monte Vista, 157, 161
:\\Iorgan Hill, 17, 20, 22 ff, 25, 148
Mount Hamilton, 21

Mount Hamilton Range, see Diablo Range
Mountain View, 13, 93, 97 f, 152, 155
Mulberry trees, 70

New Almaden, 75, S3
New Chicago, 98
Niles, 23
Nurseries, 67, 82
Nuts, 109 f, 114

Oaks. 16. 29 ff, 89; species, 32
Oakland, 12, 16, 155
Oats, (wild). 33, 52, 53
Onion.s, 143

Orchard activities, 140—142
Organizations, cooperative growers, 129
Overgrazing, 53, 79 ff
Owen, J. J., 83
Ox carts, 50 f

Pacheo Pass, 18, 21, 96
Pacheco Creek, 145
Pacheco School Corners, 145
Pacific Highway, see Highways
Pajaro Gap, 21, 80
Pajaro River, 11, 14, 72, 145
Palm tree (Washington), 89, 144
Palo Alto, 11, 13, 29, 31, 35, 123
Palou, Padre Fray Francisco, 28
Panama Canal, 101
Panama-Pacific Exhibition, 157
Park movement, 74, 75, 162
Pasture lands, 80, 81. 136, 162
Patio, 47, 141

Peaches, 18, 67, 81, 110, 111, 141, 147
Pears, 15, 18,67, 111, 137, 141, 142, 147, 149
Peas, 48, 114
Penitencia Creek, 25
Pepper tree (Schinus Molle), 88, 89
Permanente Creek, 83
Perry\'s Station, 16
Philippinos, 102
Phylloxera, 106 ff. 161
Physical Setting, 20 ff
Plaza, 49, 99
Plums, 68
Pobladores, 40
Pomological Society, 68
Poppy (Escholzia Californica), 18
Population figures, 13, 70; of California, 54;
non-farming, 102. 123. 128, 134; Santa
Clara County, 123; urban 13. 123. T 131,
132, 133; Bay Counties, 165
Property lines, 86, 100 ff, T 104, 139
Prunes, 12. 18, 48, 68, T 106, lllf, 137 f,

Racial changes in population, 126 ff, 153
Racial groups, 19, 63, 69, 71, 83, 102, 114;

Railroads, 10, 14 ff, T 134, 141, 152, 160;
• construction of, 54, 73. 96; stimulus to
agrictilture, 63, 66, 68, 105; influence on
towns, 97—100, 129 ff, 150, 164
Rainfall, 18, T 22, T 23, 78, 82, 109, 113
Rancho, 50 ff. 139
Rancho las Animas. 41. 50
Range-lands, 53, 105; decrease of, 61, 62;
methods, 79, 80; area 146; range domains

Recreation, 153, 160, 162, 164
Redwood, 28, 88. 91, 158, 162
Refrigerated shipments, 101
Rehgion, 35 ff, 130, 151
Residential districts, see Settlements
Resorts, 74
Riparian rights, 121
Rivers, 16

Roads, see Highways
Rodeo and round-up, 51, 79
Rural Population, composition of, T 72; 123,

Sacramento River, 56
Salt industry, 163
Sample Areas, 10, 86, 139
San Andres Fault, 20
San Benito County, 11
San Benito River, 11, 17; loiver valley of, 35,

San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, 62
San Francisquito Creek, 29, 35 f, 51
San Joaquin Valley, see Great Interior

San Joaquin River, 56
San Jose (City). 12. 13, T 25, 53. 71, 73, 82,
93, 129, T 134, 152
San Jose Pueblo, 38 ff, 44. 49, 50. 72. 99
San Juan Bautista (town) 18. 74
San Justo Grant, 74, 79, 98
San Lorenzo River, 23
San Martin, 152

Santa Clara (city), 13. 15, 53, 93. 99. 100
Santa Clara County. 11. 71, 129, T 134, T 135
Santa Cruz Range. 11 ff. 20 f. 26, 29 ff, 136.

Secularization of Missions, 43 ff
Secular settlement, 38 ff
Seed farms, 15 ff, 113 f, 143
Settlements, functions, 92, T 93, 129 ff;
location, 15, 17, 149 f, 160; morphology,
100, 151; rise of, 55, 74, 97—100, 131 ff,

Settlements, Indian, 33
Settlements, ratings of, T 150
Settlements, fruit pickers\', 19; neighbor-
hood, roadside, 136, 154 f; rural,\\22 f, 126
ff; service, 129 ff, 136
Sheep, 37, 60 ff, 79, 92
Shell mounds, 33
Shipping points, 15, 51, 164 f
Sierra Nevada, 54, 122
Silk-worm, 69—70

Soils, 17. 25 ff, 49, 159; exploitation of, 54 ff,
63, 78; for fruits, 83, 113, 138 ff, 146, 161;

South Shore Harbor, 51
Spanish explorations, 28 ff
Spanish plan of occupance, 34 ff
Spinach, 18, 114
Spraying, 140 f
Stage route, 72 f, 94, 96
Standard of living, 102 f, 125 f. 129 ff, 156 f
Stanford, Governor, 67
State Fairs, 67, 77
State Horticultural Society, 67
Steven\'s Creek, 51. 83. 163
Stock farms, location, 17. 79, 146; character

Strawberries. 18, 82. 114
Street systems. 15. 97—100
Sugar beets, 145
Sugar cane, 70

Township boundaries, 131; population, 71 T,
Trade, see Commerce and Industries
Transportation. 56. 130. T 134; see Rail-
roads and Automobiles
Truck farming, 142—144; see Vegetables

Value of products, T 104
Vancouver, Captain George, 32, 51. 53
Vegetables, 15 ff, 48. 67 ff, T 104, 113f
Vegetation, 9, 29 ff; contrasts in, 14, 18, 29 ff;
characteristic for Valley, 63, 159—162;
relation to fire\\ 30; relation to water, 158 f
Viticulture, area, 68, 83, T 106, 148, 161;
cultivation methods, 83; markets, 107 ff;
surplus, 68; varieties, 67, 107 f; wine pro-
ducts, 68 f; French influence, 107 f
Volunteer grain, 64, 77, 81

Walnuts. llOf
Warm belt, 22, 83 f
Water Conservation Plan, 120 ff; 138,
Water, dependence on, 13, 44. 47, 118—122,

158 f. 165; see Ground water
Weeds, wild oat and mustard, 52, 53, 82
Wells, 115 ff, 119, 138; see Irrigation
Wheat. 12. 13. 37. 49. 52. 139, 145; methods
of cultivation, 78; soils 76, 79, 145; mar-
kets, 64; yield, 64, T 65, 77
Willow Glen, 13. 31
Willows, The. 29, 31. 82
Willows (trees) 17. 144
Winds. 21. 24, 137
Windmills, 140, 142
Wool, 62, 92
Wine, see Viticulture

Terecht merkt A. Penck op: ,,Der Inhalt der Geographie wird durch das
bedingt, was in der Landschaft anschaulich wirdquot;.

Men moet onderscheid maken tusschen geographic en geographische methode;
de laatste vindt toepassing bij een aantal wetenschappen, de eerste onderscheidt
zich als een autonome wetenschap door een eigen kern object.

Het gebruik van den term ,.harmonischquot; ter nadere bepahng van denaard
van een landschap is uit wetenschappelijk oogpunt af te keuren.

Het is uit geographisch oogpunt gewenscht, de gebruikelijke indeeling van
het Nederlandsche veen in hoog- en laagveen, te behouden.

Naar aanleiding van B. Polak, ,,Een onder-
zoek naar de botanische samenstelling van

De opvatting van Dilthey: ,,Psychologie (ist) die Grundlage aller Erkennt-
nis des Geschichtlichen Lebensquot; is onjuist.

De term ..rites de passagequot; is niet zonder meer vervangbaar door de uit-
drukking ,,crisis-ritenquot;, zooals Josselin de Jong (de Couvade, blz. 21) dat wenscht.
Wel is een gedeelte der Tites de passage juister als crisis-riten te karakteriseeren.

Het is misleidend den ,,groeiquot; der nederzettingen voor te stellen als een
opeenvolging van cycli.

Terecht wijst Goedewaagen het individu aan als het ,,reines und grundle-
gendes Prinzipquot; der sociologie.

Het feit dat het nationale verkeerswezen in al zijn onderdeelen een eenheid
vormt, is uit het oog verloren. Het is dringend noodzakelijk een Verkeersministerie
te scheppen, welks eerste taak behoort te zijn een ordening van het verkeer naar
bovenbedoeld gezichtspunt.

In het vóóronderzoek dat aan een streekplan ten grondslag moet liggen,
ligt een arbeidsveld voor den geograaf.

SCHEMATIC MAP

LANDSCAPE TYPES

OF THE.

5ArHTA CLARA VALLEY

SCALE. \'I :±AaOOOO

1931

Kay

SIMPLIFIED SOIL MAP

OF THE

;)ANTA CLARA VALLEY

SCALE -1 : ± A2.0 OOO

Classif-LcaHo^ affer (?056y

/nbsp;(JeeTextp.2-y)

Key

minor administrative
D1VI5ION5

SA^TA CLARA VALLEY

I930

Also cfodicalLy?g aue/^age
aepeage ofcpoplo/^da^daaepoye
3ize of farJnbsp;ciuU

dtocjcops

AJames ofjudcccal lowm/yips
tf^ cycf^l-a Clapct County :

I Scf^ do3e

IE Safnla Clara
IE Su^n^i/ale

Y.nbsp;Pa/oAUo

2Enbsp;Sapologa

31nbsp;PediAjood

mnbsp;Cai^p^eli

IKnbsp;Bupneli

^ Crilpoy

T^ Ja/^ Se/^ilo couj^iy
XI HolU5ter

Agpteuiiunal paHepm
Onchandfopmahoy?

Orc/Tardj mixedt^M 5/^ail

enops

J/??all cpops
Pa-5t(upe5

Jellle/o^efolr /IgfyloynepalLoy^^
CUiej and lotahs

• Pupal-upixx^ aygflof^epakon5
oooooo Roadside ^elytlemenh
Border Latoo/^eapes

n Duhli/?fciayJado6e5

HE AikaLiJoilj

IST P/eaJCf/7lo/? loayr?.5

izt pir)o/e-/7\'ifocon loams

121 Mof^l-e2:uwa clays

quot;W ffesic/ualjoils

u^c^if^epenlcalecl

Oeog/^a-phc^che- e*n GeologLJiche Mededeelinqepgt;
A J,nbsp;U/nioen.ntetr U-tnechlr.nbsp;^

Name of	c	J	i \'S			lt;u f-i
Station	1—)	lt;U 1 s	« : s		1	H 3	quot;p ►—1
Santa Clara i) .....	46.8	50.3	51.9	54.6	58.6	62.8	65.0
San Jose ........	47.7	51.1	53.5	56.3	59.1	63.6	66.5
Campbell 2).......	46.9	49.6	51.4	53.9	56.7	61.4	63.8
Gilroy 2) ..........	46.5	49.3	53.7	57.8	62.5	67.0	68.8
Hollister i).........	47.9	52.0	53.7	56.8	60.2	64.3	66.0

	I	II
Section of the Valley	Total acreage in grants claimed	Acreage finally confirmed to Mexican claimants
Northern ............. Central ............... Southern .............	109,771 113,288 136,563	82,716 37,379 132,081 —
Total.........	359,622	252,176

	1859	1869	1879	1889	1899	1909	1919	1929
Wheat ...	549,195	1,188,137	648,055	282,536	175,230	10,198	22,199	24,844
Barley----	116,207	405,575	716,860	589,303	1,392,430	200,893	85,672	51,305
Oats. . ..	17,960	15,134	4,771	2,000	51,048	9,424	8,123	1,322

281,351	290,285	237,170	206.890	_
	_	—	—	172,190
6,686	40.097	37,637	70,312	95,203
3.6	21.4	20.2	37.6	51.0
2.3	13.8	15.9	34.0	—
	_	—	■—	55.3
—	500.0	-6.1	86.8	35.4
2,177	3,995	4,731	5,016	5,237
184	1,129	1,101	2,649
	_	—	1,561	2,195
8.5	28.2	23.3	52.8	—
	513.6	-2.5	140.6

Groups by birth and parentage	Composition of County population (by birth and par- entage in % of total population)	Portion of group living on farms in % of total of group	Portion of rural farm population in % of ^total rural farm population
Native white			•
Of native parentage ...	45.7	11.5	29.6
Of mixed ,, ... Of foreign	19.3 ^	19.8	37.1
Foreign born whites........	17.5	21.9	21.5
Other races ...... ...	6.8	40.3	15.5

4,142	6,000	[ ! 2,100	10,000
3,900	150	: 425	2,500
477	562	115	1,352
—	—	637	2,750
4,443	9,000	7,070	12,000
2,386	780	401	1,300
	7,000	7,017	13,000
KM	38	6	40

Missions	Cattle j	Horses, Mules, Asses	1 j Sheep, Swine, Goats i
	1834	1842	1834	1842	1834	1842
Santa Clara ........	13,000	1,500	1,200	250	15,000	3.000
San Jose ...........	24,000	8,000	1,100	200	19,000	7,000
S. Juan Bautista ... ^	9,000		1,20U	—	9,000	—

	Number of American farmers	in:
					Percentage
	Santa Clara	Milpitas	Central	Total for	of all farmers
	township	township	Section	4 townships	reported
New England .........	23	5	9	37	29%
Middle Atlantic States
(Pa. Md.) ..........	4	0	3	7	6
Southern Atlantic States
(Old South) .........	10	0	4	14	11
Northern States west of
Alleghenies..........	20	11	22	53	42
Southern States west of
Alleghenies .........	13	2	0	15	12
Total number of farmers
reported ............ 1	70	18	38	126

•	0	gt; 3 a 0 ^	2 is	1 s	cn 0 -M d 0 cn ^	8 1
Church ....................	6	1	2	2	1	_
Hotel......................	4	1	1	1	1	1
Saloon .....................	9	3	5	2	2	2
Livery stable ...............	4	1	—	1	—	—
General store ...............	—	1	2	2	1
Food store..................	11	—	1	1	—	1
Drug store..................	3	1	1	—	—	—
Clothing and shoe store .....	4	—	■ —	—	—	—
	1	—	—	—•	\' —	—
Blacksmith .................	3	2	1	4	2	1
Carpenter ...................	4	1	—	—	?
	1	—	1	—	?	—
Saddler.....................	2	—	—	1	?	—
	1	—	—	—	—	—
	—	2	1	1	—	—
	3	—	1	—	—	—
Attorney at law ...........	4		1

Percentage	Average size	Value of all
of all land	of farm in	products
in farms	acres	per acre
100.0	83	$ 48
1.0	142	23
0.2	260	19
2.1	78	34
36.1	41	93
3.0	35	106
7.0	184	70
0.3	142	14
45.1	4,327	3
0.5	8	429
0.2	54	3
2.0	35	45
2.0	70	.

Date	Urban popula- tion, of all in corporated towns	Per cent of total population of Section	Urban popula- tion, of all incor- porated towns	Per cent of total population of Section	Urban popu- lation, of all incorporated towns	Per cent of total population of Section
1870	9,089	41.0	1,625	40.6
1880	15,538	49.8	1,621	42.6
1890	22,603	51.0	1,694	43.3
1900	28.723	52.4	1,820	33.7
1910	44,277	58.0	3,044	41.7	2,308	52.4
1920	58,286	62.8	3,508	43.8	2,781	63.2
1930	91,723	68.1	4,410	42.0	3,757	52.1

Santa Clara County •	San Jose
					Per cent
	Number	Per cent	j Number	Percent	of
Main industrial groups	of	of	of	f of	County
O L		County		San Jose	total for
	persons	total	persons	total	specified
					group
Total population....................	145,118		57,651
A ll industries ......................	58,247	—	24,058	_	_
Non-agricultural industries...........	44,947	7^2	23,572		52.5
Agriculture.........................	13,330	22.8	1,486	6:2	11.2
Building, clay, glass, stone..........	4,128	7.0	1,859	7.7	45.3
Transportation and Communication
(Auto services not included) .....	4,244	7.3	2,185	9.0	52.0
Public services
(including auto services) ........	11,608	20.0	6,408	26.6	55.2
Manufacturing industries............	5,201	9.0	2,925	12.2	56.2
Food industries.....................	4,020	7.0	2,111	8.7	52.8
Professional and semi-professional
services ........................	6,330	10.8	2,289	9.5	36.3
Domestic and Personal services......	5,919	10.2	2,873	11.2	48.7

Month	Men	Women !	Total
January ....................	4,041	710	4,751
February ...................	4,039	692	4,731
March .....................	4,132	734	4,868
	4,448	1,333	5,781 )
May .......................	4,674 r	1,601	6,275 \\
June.......................	5,840 \\	4,541	10,381 /
July .......................	7,648 /	8,496	16,144 \\
August.....................	7,969 I .	9,365	17,333 J
September..................	7,795 /	8,962	16,757
October....................	5,981	6,875	12,856.
November..................	5,308	2,767	8,675
December...................	4,292	1,043	5,335