The rivers running through this
district have cut immense canons with perpendicular walls which make
much of this country difficult to traverse. Some of the soils are of
an extremely fine nature, settling firmly and requiring considerable
tillage before they are brought to a proper condition of tilth. In
many places the soils are heavily charged with calcium sulfate, or
crystals of the ordinary land plaster. The fertility of the soils,
however, is high, and when they are properly cultivated, they yield
large and excellent crops.
_California district.--_The fifth soil district lies in California
in the basin of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. The soils are
of the typical arid kind of high fertility and great lasting powers.
They represent some of the most valuable dry-farm districts of the
West. These soils have been studied in detail by Hilgard.
_Dry-farming in the five districts.--_It is interesting to note that
in all of these five great soil districts dry-farming has been tried
with great success. Even in the Great Basin and the Colorado River
districts, where extreme desert conditions often prevail and where
the rainfall is slight, it has been found possible to produce
profitable crops without irrigation.
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