and cold, but wet and dry, which mark the seasons, and the winter months, instead of killing vegetation, revive it. The dry season makes a period of consecutive drought, the only winter in the vegetation of this country, which can hardly be said at any time to cease. In forests, where the soil is sheltered, in low lands of streams and hilly country, where the ground remains moist, grass continues constantly green and flowers bloom in all months of the year.
"In the southern half of the country the long summer drought has rendered irrigation necessary, and the experience of the missions, in their prosperous day, has shown that, in California, as elsewhere, the dryest plains are made productive, and the heaviest crops yielded by that mode of cultivation. With irrigation a succession of crops may be produced throughout the year."
The peculiarities of the climate of California are so well explained in a letter from the Honorable T. Butler King, that we extract his observations thereon as the most valuable portion of the report made by him to the United States Government in March, 1850.1