Download or read book The Central Sacramento Valley Story written by Howard R. Plank and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2010-12-13 with total page 551 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After describing the Central Valley of California the book focuses on the flood plain of the Sacramento River where most of the lands adjoining the river were a series of Mexican Land Grants. These grants were broken into private holdings after statehood and the challenging effort to reclaim the overflow lands began. The book covers the political and natural challenges in reclaiming these lands together with the introduction of a new crop, rice, and the development of new machines, primarily the Caterpillar tractor, that aided significantly in making the reclamation efforts successful.