The sea-fogs which it receives cause abundant springs of excellent soft water, and also keep the grass green through the summer and fall in the gulches and ravines.

Vicinity to the ocean also gives this region a very equal climate.

It is never cold in winter nor hot in summer.

In the milk-houses I saw usually a stove, but it was used mainly to dry the milk-room after very heavy fogs or continued rains; and in the height of summer the mercury marks at most sixty-seven degrees, and the milk keeps sweet without artificial aids for thirty-six hours.
The cows require no sheds nor any store of food, though the best dairymen, I noticed, raised beets; but more, they told me, to feed to their pigs than for the cows.

These creatures provide for themselves the year round in the open fields; but care is taken, by opening springs and leading water in iron pipes, to provide an abundance of this for them.
The county is full of dairy-farms; and, as this business requires rather more and better buildings than wheat, cattle, or sheep farming, as well as more fences, this gives the country a neater and thriftier appearance than is usual among farming communities in California.