300 word blog post on California History
HRW33
AgriculturetoAgribusiness4.1.pptxAgriculture to Agribusiness
Triumph of Diversity
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Importance of 1863-1864 drought
Devastating effect on cattle industry
People looked to agriculture as a new industry
A Bonanza in Wheat
The most important California farm product in the late nineteenth century was wheat (1860s-1893). It became important because:
Wheat required little or no irrigation and actually benefited from long dry summers
Farmers knew how to grow it and it was relatively inexpensive to grow
It was a nonperishable crop that could be transported profitably for long distances; therefore it was shipped all over the world as well as to the eastern United States.
From the late 1860s to the early 1890s, grain was produced in vast amounts on the large wheat ranches of the valley.
Economic Effects
An elaborate structure for the marketing of wheat to the world grew up almost overnight.
British and American companies bought wheat in California and sold it on exchanges in England and elsewhere.
Isaac Friedlander, the “Grain King,” and others monopolized the wheat industry
Hugh Glenn, who owned more than 60,000 acres of wheat land, had many dozens of teams of eight horses pulling what was known as the Stockton gang plow.
During the 1870s and 1880s, California wheat growing developed into the most mechanized and structured form of agriculture in the world and became the state's major export industry
New Inventions:
First ever Steam powered tractors used in the San Joaquin Valley (1886)
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End of the Wheat Bonanza
Competition: New wheat farms started producing on the Great Plains and in Europe, Asia, and Australia
Overproduction glutted world markets and wheat prices plummeted.
Soil depletion: The dry farming of wheat had the peculiar disadvantages of a one-crop agricultural economy and year after year of such farming inevitably depleted the soil and eventually wheat farming was displaced by other more profitable crops
Irrigation: The spread of irrigation also helped to make other crops more profitable and by 1890 sugar-beet production led by Claus Spreckels in Watsonville-Salinas area and the Oxnard brothers in southern California was a dominant crop.
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Fruit and Specialty-Crop Farming: the benefits of diversity
Specialty crops were grown – For example, after 1870, citrus, rice, winter vegetables, melons, and cotton.
Fragile, perishable, and unfamiliar to American farmers, the new crops needed specific climates, soils, and handling.
In particular they required more water than nature provided.
Farming Organizations
Sponsor innovation
Combat disease and pests
Disseminate information
Lobby government
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Fruit and Specialty Crop Farming (cont.)
California State Agricultural Society 1854
Specialized organizations
Livestock
Wine grapes: began with the missions
By 1900, 80% of the USA wine production came from California (R&B 204)
Deciduous fruit
Oranges
The “Riverside Navel” orange
Raisins
Nuts
Sunkist (1893) association of citrus growers
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