370 Agricultural Experiment Station, Ithaca, N. Y. 



of the state began to make trials to grow tlie Lima bean. Their 

 etforts, though, proved to be failures. Our section, however, that 

 of the Santa Clara valley of the south, in Ventura county, and only 

 about twenty miles from the Carpenteria, would see in to possess 

 nearly all the requirements in soil and climate. Bat some way the 

 business did not 'pan out' right as the 'forty-niner' would say, 

 Carpenteria farmers had their eyes on the operations in Ventura 

 county, however. They noticed that their own farms were usually 

 from ten to twenty acres, while the Ventura farms averaged at that 

 time about one thousand acres to each farmer. They noticed also 

 that the farming was done in a slipshod out-of-season fashion that 

 would not succeed even in their own section. Finally some of them 

 rented small tracts of land in the Santa Clara valley and instituted 

 their methods of farming. When lo ! Dame Nature smiled upon 

 them. Ye rancher on a thousand acres came around to see how it 

 happened that the despised 'small farming' had resulted in as 

 much clear gain from a few acres as he had received from his 

 thousand. Other practical bean growers settled in the valley and 

 the shipments of Limas from southern California doubled, trebled, 

 and quadrupled — when finally improved facilities had rendered 

 large farming practicable. However, the average yield per acre, 

 about one ton, continues larger in the Carpenteria valley than in 

 most other places. Although numerous attempts are made to grow 

 the Lima bean in other sections of the state the fact remains that 

 nearly all of this variety shipped from California came from the 

 extreme southern part of Santa Barbara county, and from the 

 valley of Ventura county lying near the coast. The little valley of 

 the Carpenteria sends out about one hundred car loads, and those of 

 Ventura about twelve hundred car loads annually. (Estimate of 10 

 tons each.) 



" The methods adopted here in growing and harvesting the Lima 

 bean could not be pursued in countries where rain falls during the 

 summer season. The cultivation proper is all done during the 

 winter and spring and before the beans are ))lanted. The cultiva- 

 tion is very thorough and by the best of implements. 



" After all danger of rain is passed in the spring, say from the 1st 

 to 20th of May, the seed is put into the ground in rows about forty 

 inches apart and from six to fourteen inches in the row with 

 machines that plant from two to four rows at a time. After the 

 crop^is well up and growing, some weeds will have started too. 



