The padres who settled California understood this well. A number of bushels of wheat, snugly incased in leather sacks, formed a precious part of the cargo of the San Carlos, that stout Spanish vessel which in 1769 brought the first settlers to California. This seed-wheat was divided among the early missions and as soon as possible was planted--not with success at first. For a time the padres made little progress in crop raising. They had to learn by their failures. In San Diego the first wheat planted was sown in the river bottom and the seed was carried entirely away by the rising of the stream in the winter; and the next year, which proved to be a dry one, it was planted so far from the water that it was almost all destroyed by drought. At San Gabriel the first crop was drowned out, but the second, planted on the plain where it could be irrigated, was a success. San Gabriel was chief among the missions for wheat raising, and was called the “mother of agriculture.” Grain planting and harvesting, in the days of the padres, differed widely from the methods which prevail to-day. Then the ground was plowed once or twice, but in what manner? A yoke of oxen, guided by an Indian, dragged a plow with an iron point made by an Indian blacksmith. If iron could not be obtained, the point was of oak. Seed, which had been first soaked in lye, was sown by hand, broadcast, and harrowed in with branches of trees. The grain was cut by the Indians with knives and sickles. It was afterward placed on the hardened floor of a circular corral made for the purpose, and into it was turned a band of horses which were urged to a run by the shouts and whips of the Indian vaqueros. After running one way they were frightened into turning and going the other. In this manner the grain was trampled out of the husks. It was freed from the chaff by being thrown high in the air by the shovelful, when the wind was blowing hard enough to carry away the light straw. Next, the grain was washed and dried, then ground, generally between two stones bolted together. A pole for a handle was also fastened by the bolt, and the stone was turned, sometimes by mules, sometimes by Indians. La Perouse, the French scientist who visited the coast in 1786 and gave to the padres of San Carlos a handmill for grinding grain, said that it would enable four Indian women to do the work of a hundred by the old way. Before many years the padres at San Gabriel built a water mill of stone and adobe which ground grain in large quantities, but not with entire success, until Chapman, the first American in that region, gave them his assistance to perfect the machinery. This interesting building has been restored by Mr. H. E. Huntington and is an object of interest to those who visit San Gabriel.