cams_jcornock_b2990_f016_001_01

Campo Seco June 13/55 [1855]

Dear Father & Mother

Since I wrote my Last nothing now has Transpired Worth speaking
of but I thought I would write to let you know that we were
all well. in your letter of the 11th of feb [February] you asked me to give you
a description of the land and the products of the soil. now this
is easy done for the soil is of any description from the poorest
to the richest from land that will produce twenty nine pound cabbage
or turnips three feet in circufferance [circumference] and onions that will weigh
a pound and a half a piece to rocky barren soil that would
not raise a mustard plant. all kinds of grain grows well
I have been told by farmers last year that their crops averadged [averaged]
sixty bushels to the acre and some more than this and
the price of land varys [varies] as much as the products. good land
near the cities is valued very high but as you go back
the value recedes until you come to places where you
can get good land for taking it up but farming hardly
pays. Wheat sold last fall in Sacremento [Sacramento] at seventy five cts [cents] per
bushel. when a man has paid for his seed paid for help to work
the soil paid for gathering and cleaning it and bags to
put it in he has little for himself after he has paid freight
on it to market and what will tend to keep the price down
is the close of Oregon and Washington Territories that is
mostly a farming community and they have no market
for their surplus grain except California. is was told
last fall that there was lots of wheat fields left in
Oregon last year because the price was so low that
it would not pay for cutting it. Freight from oregon [Oregon]