|
HISTORY
El
Dorado County, California.
CHAPTER
XXIII.
FARMING
INDUSTRY AND STATISTICS.
The Resources of El Dorado county are of various kinds,
and each one is contributing largely to the support of the others
; but were it not for the home market, created and supported by the mines,
agriculture would never have been so fully developed or so successfully
maintained. This being a mining county and without a railroad, the farmers
of the county have been thrown chiefly upon the home demand to furnish a
market for their produce, which will be regulated by the mining industry,
where it is mainly dependent from. An attempt has always been made to
secure and supply the market of that part of the State of Nevada,
adjoining the county, in opposition to the railroad. The
first experiment to plant potatoes and other vegetables in large patches
were made as early as 1849 and 1850, in the vicinity of Union Bar and Coloma, on Greenwood creek ; the men who undertook this first trial were
three brothers, Hodges. At Garden valley also vegetable gardening on a
more business like scale had been commenced in early days, and the place
derived its name from this vocation. These experiments turned out in the
most satisfactory way, and soon other localities with equal facilities
followed the given example. An experiment
also was that first attempt at grain raising made in the Spring of 1851,
by Wm Crone, of Greenwood valley, when he sowed the first barley on the
land now belonging to the ranch owned by I. E. Terry, of said township.
This has to be looked at as the first trial of grain raising not only of
the Northern part of the country but of the whole of it. A.J. Bayley, of Pilot Hill, started in general farming on a large scale in
1851 or 1852, and he was the first man in the county who made use of
such farming machinery as reaper and mower, threshing machine etc.; the
first mower that was delivered at Pilot Hill, arrived there the whole
taken apart, for easier shipment, but there was no one around who had
ever seen a mower and some difficulty arose in putting it together and
bring it in working order. All other parts came together very well but
the sicklebar did not join in to work satisfactorily, and Mr. Bayley had
to send the machine back to Sacramento
 to have it done right. Some years
later he bought the first threshing machine that was worked in the
county, the railroad then was just completed from Sacramento up to
Auburn, it was delivered for him at the latter station. He went over
with is teams to bring it home, and on the trip he more than one time
asked if he was going in the circus business, or if a circus was coming,
the people not familiar with its sight took the machine for a
band-wagon.
 For planting fruit trees, within this county,
Coloma has to be considered as the starting point, just as well as it
always was the leading place. Among the first who engaged in general fruit
growing must be named A. A. Van Guelder and E. Woodruff ; others followed,
and the Coloma basin has become the most famous district in fruit-growing.
Coloma fruit commands a higher market price than fruit from other places.
The principal fruit growers of Coloma district at the present time are :
Henry Mahler, Robert Chalmers' widow, J.
Crocker, B F. Edmonds, W. D. Othick, Frank
Nicholls, N. Mansfield, S. Rasmussen's widow, W. H.
Valentine, G. W. Ramsey, Wm. White, Ernest
Mortensen, G. D. Enters, Albert
Mosely and others. The Gold Hill district has long
been famous for its fruit, not only in this State, but far over the
eastern limits ; great quantities of the fruit raised here are going over
the mountains every year and find a ready market in the mining camps and
town in the State of Nevada. The leading growers of the district are :
Messrs. Veerkamp, Kesselring,
Tinney, Annabel, Sweeny,
O'Brien and McKay. In
the Mud Spring district the principal orchardists are : J. M. B.
Wetherwax,
Jacob Knisely and L. Davis. Missouri Flat also
belongs to the great fruit producing sections of the county ; quite an
amount of fruit is grown by Samuel Miller, N.S.
Miller, Walter Miles, J.
M. Bryan, Frank Fisher and others, who all make fruit-growing a specialty. At
and around Diamond Springs are C. G. Carpenter, Tom.
Stapleton, Bart.Koch's widow, Kramp Bros., Nicholas
Theison, C. D. Bruck and Henry Larkin, engaged in the fruit and grape-raising business. The
basin around Placerville is one continuous orchard, while the surrounding
hills have to produce their share also. Mr. Hardy, on Cedar Hill, is doing
a great business in fruit and grape-growing. On
French creek is another quite important fruit-growing district of the
county ; the farms here are not continuous, but scattered over the whole
extent of the canyon. The principal fruit-growers here may be called
Captain G. Worth, Z. L. Brandon and G.
Barette. Mr.
Jacob Zentgraf, on Sweetwater creek, Green Valley, keeps one of the oldest
vineyards in the county, which he has endeavored to enlarge and improve
considerably every year. Among other extensive grape-growers of the same
section have to be mentioned James Skinner, of Green Valley, David
Bennett, near Shingle Springs. The finest display of beautiful growing
vineyards, covering may hundreds of acres of ground in close connection,
and one that will stand comparison with any in any other part of the
State, may be found lower down in the county, near Mormon
Island. The
principal vineyards here are Henry Mette's, next is the
Bugbee place, Mrs. Stroup's, H. T.
Hart's, Powell Hart's, and across the river G. M.
Wobbena's ; most all of them connected with large vineries. The views of
Henry Mette's and H. T. Hart's vieneyards*, which will be found at some
other part of the book, give an idea of the grape industry on the rolling
hills below the Natoma ditch, in this section of El Dorado county. The
most extensive operations in the way of fruit-raising in this county,
however, is conducted by the " California Fruit Growing
Association." Their ranch of 1,700 acres of land is located in the
foot-hill region about five miles south of Placerville, and in the line of
location as well as for the soil, is perfectly adapted for fruit-growing,
being placed between the Park Canal and Mining Company's ditch and the
Consumes river. The work of this association dates back to 1874, and will
assume mammoth proportions. When they acquired possession of the place
there was three-fourths of an acre planted with apple trees, and up to
January 1st, 1881, 140 acres of thrifty orchard, with 4,000 peach trees,
8,000 prune trees and 5,000 plum trees, were giving proof of the spirit of
the enterprise. Mosquito canyon, also,
belongs to the fruit-growing districts of the county ; though general
farming is considered the principal line of business in the valley, there
may be found large and fine looking orchards producing excellent fruit of
the harder varieties. Most excellent fruit, furthermore, is raised in the
northern part of the county, at Alabama Flat, by D. W. Fox ; at Garden
Valley, by F. Lagerson and others ; at Peru, by H.
Hackamoller, and in the
vicinity of Georgetown, by E. C. Day and Son, R.
Demuth and others. Sometime
about the middle of the year 1868, Mr. T. H. Schnell, a German by birth
for long years a resident of Japan, came from the latter country to
California with the intention to settle, and after looking around for
awhile, all over the country, he made a purchase of some tracts of land at
Gold Hill, which location seemed to answer best his purpose of engaging in
the culture of the tea plant, the oil plant, the wax tree and the mulberry
tree, which eventually was to be connected with the raising of the silk
worm and the manufacturing of silk. To realize this purpose he went on to
establish a Japanese
colony, to be conducted on the
co-operative labor system. The colony was started with a number of
Japanese laborers in the same year, and sixteen new arriving Jap's were
added to it in the Spring of 1869, and some vigorous attempts were made
towards planting and general improving of the place. He imported from
Japan a new variety of silkworm, called the aman, which is much hardier
and feeds on the leaves of the black oak tree, then went on to build a
cocoonery for the raising and breeding of these silkworms. By that time,
in the Spring of 1870, he had imported and set out 150,000 yea plants, and
from those plants that had been set out the year before a crop was
expected already that same year, as well as other improvements promised to
bring some return. But he became embarrassed in different trouble, first
with the miners who jumped in his place and commenced to work out the
ground, which caused much annoyance and damage to the ground as well as to
the growing crop ; then with his plants, not being sufficient expert, he
had been cheated in the quality of the plants he had imported for good
money ; and last but not least, his financial affairs began to bother him,
and the result was that he failed and returned to Japan, whether with the
intention to raise new funds to meet his obligations, or to simply get out
of the way of all these difficulties which he did not like to face, this
has never been unraveled, on account that he never came back, but the news
arrived here that he had been killed in Japan. This was the end of the
Japanese Colony. The ground and premises then came in the possession of
Mr. Fr. Veerkamp. Stock
Raising. This most primitive occupation of
man naturally has received a good deal of attention here. Principally this
business is divided among cattle, sheep and goats, while comparatively few
horses are raised in the county. The assessment roll of 1880 shows 2,868,
horses and colts, with a value of $114,055, but only 116 jacks, jennies
and mules, with a valuation of $4,415. Considering the well known
hardiness and adaptability of the mule for all kinds of work, this seems
to be singular, but it is a fact that there can hardly be found another
part of California where so few mules tread the road than in El Dorado
county. Of sheep the report gives 22,999, valued at $34,500. A large
percentage of the sheep summered in the higher mountains of this county is
owned in Sacramento our other counties, and notwithstanding the Spring
clip is taken before they are sent above and the greater part of the Fall
clip, after they return home, the present clip annually belonging to El
Dorado county, would be sufficient to run a first class woolen manufactory
here where the water-power is considereable cheap, and convenient in any
one of a half a dozen localities ; while rents , labor and all incidental
expenses are below those of Sacramento, San Francisco etc. But the
California people still prefer paying freight both ways, giving the
Eastern factory owners and the transportation companies the profit, which
might just as well be distributed at home, benefiting the country. The
stock raising and dairying business of this county is carried on to a
greater extent than most of its residents ever are aware of. There are
hundreds of thousands of acres within this county of little or no value
for any other purpose but this. Most all the land from Latrobe and
Clarksville toward the line of Sacramento county, in a body having a
beautiful appearance, but only here and there is a tract suitable for
cultivation, on account of the bed-rock coming too near to the surface,
the soil above cannot give sufficient nourishment during our dry summers.
Mr. M. H. Miller, of Latrobe, who has upwards of 6,000 acres of land, and
3500 of it under fence, divided by cross-fences upon this he is pasturing
6,500 head of sheep, besides some 50 horses and cattle ; and by his system
of changing his stock from field to field, he is improving the pasture
gradually. Hogs do not seem popular, there were
2,730 assessed at a value of $13,355, which figure is hardly large enough
to cover the smaller part of the home consume, and farmers, like city
folks, have to buy their bacon just as they have to buy their sugar and
coffee, while there are tracts of land easy to irrigate and grow alfalfa,
on which hogs could be raised. Passing from
the farming industries our attention will be drawn next to the timber
supply of the great forests. In this respect the county certainly is not
behind any part of the State, if we except the redwood forests of the
Coast Range, which monopolize with their product the market of San
Francisco. The demands of the miners have practically divested the western
half of the county of the timber for the manufacture of lunmber*, but
there is no limit to the supply for fuel anywhere, while the new growth
will soon cover the vacant lands with all the timber required for any
purpose. Further east, excepting the highest peaks of the Sierra Nevada,
the country is covered with a dense growth of the finest timber in the
world. We believe we are safe in saying that El Dorado county has, to-day,
not less than 600 square miles of virgin forests. This consists
principally of cedar, spruce, fir, several varieties of yellow pine, and
the magnificent sugar pine. In the higher altitudes, tamarack is found in
large quantities, while an occasional hemlock puts in an appearance. Along
the shores of Lake Bigler, and far back toward the mountain tops, the
timber is being rapidly cleared away, to supply the Virginia mines and the
Nevada towns in general. What that annual cut in that region is, we are
unable to state. It is run into the lake and towed in rafts by steamers to
Glenbrook, whence a narrow-gauge railroad has been built to carry it over
the mountains. It is more than probably,
that the demand for forest products, east and west from this county, will
sooner or later result in restoring the county to her place on the great
thoroughfare from ocean to ocean. The local demand, adding all that can be
profitably hauled away with teams, will hardly make an impression on the
supply for generations to come. The business of
shake-making is a serious detriment to the forests, and especially
destructive to the sugar pine, which is principally used for that purpose.
Thousands of splendid trees have been cut down and left to rot, because,
on trial, the timber was found to rive not exactly to the taste of the
fastidious shake-maker. The quantity thus left to decay annually is
greater that worked into shakes. It is a business which ought to be
discouraged on this account, and the government should protect the public
lands from such vandalism. During the time when
all the freight from Nevada went over the Carson road, teams, on the
return trip, loaded with lumber at the mills along that great
thoroughfare, for the valleys below. At the present day little is being
done in this direction. Complete the Sacramento Railroad to Placerville,
and the E. D. W. & D. G. M. Co. will at once find it to their interest
to build a V flume from Sportsman's Hall to Placerville. The Main Trunk
canal has been constructed with special reference to the transportation of
lumber. The following are the saw-mills in
El Dorado county; one or two : The California Water company owns two mills
; one of them is worked only for supplying the company with what is
required for the renewell of the flumes, etc.; the other, near Georgetown,
sells large quantities of lumber for transportation to Folsom and below.
D. W. C. Benjamin's mill on Bear creek,and* R. Noble's mill on Rock creek,
supply the local demand of the Georgetown divide. J. & J. Blair own
three mills--the Elkhorn mill, the Sportsman's Hall mill, and the Cedar
Rock mill ; they keep a lumberyard at Placerville, and this city and the
surrounding country are their principal consumers. Blair Bros. have a box
factory connected with their mills, where they manufacture a large
quantity of boxes for the fruit trade. The Ashland mill of Jones &
Chichester, also keep a lumber-yard at Placerville. Joseph
Bryant owns two
mills, the Diamond mill close to the Min Trunk canal and the Stonebreaker
mill, on the old emigrant road at Lake Springs--the latter has not been
running for years. Mr. Bryant keeps a lumber-yard at Diamond
Springs, but
he sends most of his lumber down below. Cutler's mill, on Park creek, is
run by water-power. The Baltic mill, owned by Louis Lepetit, in 1877, made
the largest and most valuable cut of the season, of 1,800,000 feet ; more
than two-thirds of it was clear sugar pine, cut on contract for the El
Dorado Door Factory at Pleasant valley. Two saw-mills between
Grizzly Flat
and Brownsville were owned formerly by Loofbourrow, now by
Hoskins, of
Grizzly Flat. Tarr Bros. have a large saw-mill on the bank of the Cosumnes*
river in this county ; their product, however, finds a marked* in the
neighboring county of Amador ; they have built a railroad to run their
saw-logs to the mill. The total product of all the mills in 1877 was about
10,000,000 feet. The El Dorado Door Factory, the
only institution of the kind in the county, is owned by Wilson Bros., of
San Francisco. They consumed, in the year 1877, about 1,400,000 feet of
sugar pine lumber, which was manufactured into 32,000 doors, 6,000 pairs
of blinds, and 22,000 pairs of sashes ; the freight bill at Shingle Springs
shows 800 tons in one year. But the factory has not been worked since. The
following shows the complete statistics of El Dorado county, compiled by
J. McKnight, of Brownsville, in October, 1855 : Lands
inclosed*, 8,000 acres. Land
in wheat, 450 acres ; yield per acre, 26 bushels. Land
in barley, 340 acres ; yield per acre 28 bushels. Land
in oats, 387 acres ; yield per acre, 25 bushels. Land
in hay, 1,750 acres ; yield per acre 1.1/4 tons. Fruit
Trees -- Apple, 1,608: pear, 34 ; peach, 1,159 ; plum, 40 ; cherry, 40 ;
figs, 12 ; apricots, 15 ; quince, 25, and grape vines 3,000. Animals--Horses,
907 ; mules, 384 ; asses, 65 ; neat cattle, 1,281 ; work-oxen, 690 ;
milk-cows 769 ; calves, 519 ; sheep, 654 ; swine 4,620. Value
of animals slaughtered per annum, about $575,000 ; value of poultry,
$5,000. Canals--Twenty
principal canals, 16 of which are supplied with water throughout the year.
Total length of main trunks, 475 miles ; lateral branches of trunks, 325
miles. Original cost, $1,395,000. Saw-mills--Running
by stream, 24, by water, 16 ; market value of lumber, from $20 to 40 per
thousand. Quartz-mills--In
operation, 7 ; crushing daily 56 tons of rock ; yield per ton from $5. to
$75. Other Industries--One
flouring-mill, 5 tanneries, 4 breweries, 3 soda factories 2 brickyards, 8
lime-kilns, and 15 toll bridges. Telegraphs--The
Alta line has a length of wire in El Dorado county amounting to 75 miles. Census
Statistics of 1870 The census returns of El
Dorado county show the following figures as to population, wealth,
improvement, etc. The number of families in the
county is 3,263. White males, 5,453 , white females, 3,121 ; colored
males, 1,590 ; colored females, 136. Of this number 1,514 are Chinese, 22
Japanese, and 89 of African descent--these last three classes are
enumerated as colored. Male citizens of the United States of 21 years and
upwards 3,188. Giving a total population of 10,300 living in 3,758
dwelling houses. Value of
real estate in the county, $1,473,394. Value
of personal property, $1,745.995. There
are 84,507 acres of improved land. There
are 27,923 acres of wood land. There
are 27,076 acres of other unimproved land. Cash
value of farms in the county, $653,465. Value
of farming implements and machinery, $32,104. Amount
of wages paid during the year, including board, $94,268. Farm
Stock--Value of live stock $478,866. Horses,
2,258 ; mules and asses, 142, milk cows, 4,132 ; work oxen, 212 ; other
cattle, 5,385 ; sheep 18,137 ; swine, 4,150. Producing
cereals for the ear ending June 1st, 1870 :
| Spring wheat |
780 |
bushels. |
| Winter wheat |
3,117 |
" |
| Rye |
557 |
" |
| Corn |
582 |
" |
| Oats |
250 |
" |
| Barley |
8,330 |
" |
| Buckwheat |
30 |
" |
| Peas and beans |
1,251 |
" |
| Potatoes |
5,728 |
" |
| Wool |
39,910 |
pounds |
| Butter |
224,885 |
" |
| Cheese |
23,892 |
" |
| Honey |
1,660 |
" |
| Hay |
6,227 |
tons |
| Mild sold extra |
601 |
gallons |
| Wine made |
108,981 |
" |
| Estimated value of farm
products, including betterment and additions to stock |
$507,138 |
| Value of orchard products |
61,831 |
| Value of garden products |
14,784 |
| Value of forest products |
23,607 |
| Value of home manufactures |
8,725 |
| Value of slaughtered
animals |
55,564 |
There are 59 mining ditches, total length 966 miles. Quartz-mills
37, and saw-mills, 25. The census returns of El
Dorado county for 1880 give the following figures as to the population of
the different townships : population
of El Dorado County -- 1880.
| Townships |
Whites |
Negroes |
Chinamen |
Indians |
Total |
| City of Placerville |
1,685 |
21 |
267 |
1 |
1,974 |
| Placerville Township |
856 |
|
118 |
12 |
986 |
| Coloma and White Oak Townsh's |
1,257 |
36 |
292 |
19 |
1,604 |
| Mud Springs Township |
1,243 |
13 |
217 |
49 |
1,522 |
| Diamond Springs Township |
788 |
|
88 |
27 |
903 |
| Mountain and Cosumnes Twp's |
683 |
10 |
79 |
65 |
837 |
| Georgetown & Lake Valley |
1,052 |
23 |
120 |
|
1,195 |
| Kelsey, Greenwood &
Salmon Falls
Townships |
1,269 |
21 |
322 |
14 |
1,626 |
| Total |
8,833 |
124 |
1,503 |
187 |
10,647 |
These figures show a total gain of 338
since 1870.
|
