24 



the fair average yield being from three hundred to five hundred dollars 

 in value. The cranberry crop of New Jersey for this year is valued at 

 two million five hundred thousand dollars. We cannot state the annual 

 consumption of our State, but it is very large, and its supply by home 

 production would be an item of profit to individuals and value to the 

 State. The cultivation is being commenced in Alpine County, and should 

 be in many others. 



VEGETABLES AND VEGETABLE GARDENS. 



It is the pi'ide and boast of every Californian that our markets are 

 well stocked with vegetables of nearly every description known and 

 valued in the world, and of the most superior quality, every month in 

 the year. It is one of the highest recommendations of our climate and 

 State, that these vegetables are all grown in the open air, and are afforded 

 at prices so low as to be within the reach of all. With the exception of 

 potatoes, they are produced mostly by our foreign population, such as 

 Portuguese, Italians, Germans and Chinese, in the vicinity of the towns 

 and cities, who make gardening a specialty. They are picked each day, 

 and are brought into market in the earl} 7 morning, when fresh and inviting 

 and healthy. Potatoes are grown extensively in the coast counties, in 

 the river bottoms and in the mountain districts. The best potatoes in 

 the State come from the Sierra Nevadas, at about the altitude of Dutch 

 Flat, or three thousand five hundred feet. 



One of the most remarkable features connected with California agri- 

 culture is the almost entire absence of vegetable gardeus in the best 

 agricultural districts. Farmers, whose tables, above all others, should 

 and could be well supplied, the year round, with the greatest abundance 

 of delicious vegetables, fresh each day from their own gardens, are noto- 

 riously the poorest supplied with these luxuries of any other class of 

 people in the State ; and, strange to say, what they do have generally 

 come from the vegetable dealers in the towns and cities, and are stale 

 and uninviting. Vegetable pedlers buy their supplies in the towns and 

 cities, and make their regular trips among the grain raisers in the coun- 

 try to sell them. This anomalous state of affairs is brought about by 

 two causes — first, that the soil of our grain land is not so well adapted 

 to the production of vegetables as grain, and next, to an indisposition on 

 the part of the farmers themselves to cultivate in the garden. Time to 

 do so is certainly not wanting, for garden work could and should be 

 done in the winter here, and early spring, when the other work of the 

 farm is slack. Half an acre of ground, properly prepared and judiciously 

 cultivated in a variety of garden produce, would yield more real profit 

 to the farmer than five times that amount sown to grain. It would 

 employ his idle moments, stimulate him to useful experiments, and be 

 the means of bringing up his boys to habits of industry, besides furnish- 

 ing his table with a constant supply of health producing luxuries, to 

 which, under the present system of management, it is a stranger. The 

 man who cultivates a garden well insensibl}^ becomes a good and success- 

 ful farmer, and he who neglects to cultivate any garden at all, just as 

 insensibly, but surely, becomes a slovenish and unsuccessful farmer. 

 Besides, if there was no other reason why our farmers should all have 

 gardens, both for flowers and vegetables, attached to their houses, the 

 fact that they contribute so much to the general home appearance and 

 beauty of a place, and to the country at large, would be a sufficient 

 argument in their favor. The}- would enhance the value of land in the 



