140 



HORTICULTURE 



February 3, 1906 



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5 0, COLEUS 



Verschaffeltii, Golden Bedder and fancy named varieties. Can deliver at once or will book orders for March and April delivery 



Rooted Cuttings, 60c. per lOO, $5.00 per lOOO Cash. 

 H. N. EATON, South Sudbury, Mass. 



IMPRESSIONS OF CALIFORNIA 

 AND ITS CLIMATE. 



(A Paper Presented by E. D. Darlington, 

 Before the Florists' Club ot Philadelphia.; 



In complying with the request of 

 certain members of your club that I 

 should give you a short talk on a trip 

 which I had occasion to make to Cali- 

 fornia the past fall in the interests of 

 the seed firm with which I have the 

 honor of being connected, I would 

 state that the period of this visit was 

 the latter part of September and the 

 early part of October at which time 

 nearly all the harvests had been 

 gathered and the growers were await- 

 ing the advent of the rains to com- 

 mence plowing and planting the crops 

 for the ensuing year. 



In the section visited which com- 

 prised the coast-line from San Fran- 

 cisco to Los Angeles and the higher 

 land in the vicinity of Sacramento, 

 there had been no rain since the pre- 

 vious spring; the hills and mountains 

 were gray and bare excepting for the 

 small brush and occasional carpet of 

 dried burr clover, while over the 

 trees and road-side weeds were a thick 

 coating of finely powdered dust. Ex- 

 cepting on occasional small lawns and 

 parks which were kept frequently 

 watered, nature had completed her 

 work for the season and was enjoying 

 a period of rest before starting in to 

 produce another crop. But the climate 

 was fully in evidence everywhere and 

 its possibilities were a source of con- 

 tinual wonder to the gardener from 

 the east and impressed itself on one 

 at every hand, not only to see the 

 growth of palms and greenhouse 

 plants in the open air, but also in the 

 changed appearance of our own 

 familiar crops of fruits. The real 

 estate boomers and people of the towns 

 hold forth on the subjects of climate 

 with the greatest enthusiasm but the 

 gardeners and seedmen whom I had the 

 pleasure of meeting, pass over all this 

 as a matter of course and confined 

 themselves to showing their various 

 crops and the natural points of interest 

 in their immediate vicinity and all 

 were true gardeners in extending the 

 hand of fellowship and hospitality. 

 My time was extremely limited and 

 was so fully occupied in visiting the 

 ranches of the seed growers that I 

 did not visit any distinctively florists' 

 places, nor did I notice any such on 

 the outskirts of the cities, but they 

 must have a number of such places as 

 the flower stores in the cities evi- 

 denced. These stores were quite in the 

 eastern style, though not nearly as 

 numerous. At the time of my visit 

 the flower stores in Los Angeles and 

 San Francisco had good displays of 

 chrysanthemums, which at that time 

 were selling for $2.50 per dozen at 

 wholesale in San Francisco, but aside 

 from the chrysanthemums, the flowers 

 displayed were not as fine as the pro- 

 ducts of the greenhouses in our own 



city. No doubt this is largely due to 

 the lack of demand for fine flowers at 

 that time as it was between seasons, 

 as there should be no difficulty in pro- 

 ducing as fine roses and finer carna- 

 tions than we have if there should be 

 a sufficient demand for them. The 

 only drawback is the high cost of 

 coal, but this could probably be ob- 

 viated by the use of oil, which is 

 almost exclusively burned for the pro- 

 duction of power. 



Leaving San Francisco the morning 

 after my arrival, my first stop was in 

 the famed Santa Clara valley, a tract 

 of level land from three to ten miles 

 wide lying between two ranges of 

 brown hills. The soil is black and 

 heavy, much of it in the central por- 

 tion being adobe or dried swamp land 

 divided by large open drainage ditches, 

 while the higher portions were of a 

 lighter color and texture. The soil is 

 free from stones and consists of loam 

 or earth which has washed down from 

 the hills through countless ages, and 

 the higher, lighter colored ground had 

 much the appearance of our own 

 soils, but in the lower ground the 

 black adobe has the appearance of the 

 muck found in the bottom of an old 

 pond. In the dry seasons this black 

 earth becomes extremely hard and 

 large cracks radiate over the surface 

 in every direction. Even where it is 

 kept constantly cultivated, the small 

 particles of soil resemble gravel in 

 their hardness. 



Such flowers as late crops of sweet 

 peas, asters, etc., as well as beds of 

 young celery, carrots and endives were 

 growing vigorously under the influence 

 of irrigation and did not seem to mind 

 either the hardness of the soil nor 

 the intense heat which prevailed 

 during the middle of the day. Hoeing 

 to keep the surface soil still loose and 

 fine is unknown in California, and 

 probably impossible in the adobe 

 lands. It was a strange sight for east- 

 ern eyes to see men walking between 

 the rows of plants with the hoe held 

 high in the air to furrow a vigorous 

 chop at any weeds which might ap- 

 pear. 



The fruit orchards on the other 

 hand have the surface of the soil con- 

 stantly cultivated and are as clean and 

 free from weeds as a model garden, 

 but the eastern eye misses and longs 

 for the fresh green backgrounds which 

 should relieve the cultivated lands, 

 and its entire absence at least at that 

 season of the year, continually re- 

 minds you. that you are in a strange 

 land. The leaves of the fruit trees 

 are a rich deep green, as well as the 

 foliage of the growing crops, but serve 

 only to accentuate the dusty brown 

 or gray tints of the surrounding land- 

 scape. Even where there is a bright 

 green lawn, it has the appearance of 

 a small flower bed in the midst of the 

 bare brown earth surrounding it on 

 every side. 



Nearly all planting in California is 

 done on a large scale and is quite dis- 

 tinctly localized; thus in the Santa 

 Clara valley, we find the ranches of 

 the principal seed growers within a 

 few miles of each other, and fairly ex- 

 tensive apple orchards, with miles 

 and miles of prunes and thousands of 

 acres of sugar beets. Every crop is 

 grown for the cash it will bring and 

 outside of the large tourist hotels and 

 some few private places in the towns, 

 ornamental plantings or surroundings 

 are things of the future. This seems 

 strange to a gardener or florist as 

 practically all of our decorative palms 

 and plants can be grown in the open 

 air but it is doubtless due to the 

 necessity of irrigating or constant 

 watering of the plants and grass re- 

 quired during the dry seasons and it 

 costs about twenty to twenty-five 

 dollars for the water necessary to keep 

 a small town lawn fresh and green 

 during the summer and fall. 



Although very nearly all of the level 

 valley lands are now under cultiva- 

 tion, there still remain occasional 

 groups or clumps of live oak trees 

 and these with their mossy gnarled 

 trunks and branches and the bright 

 green holly-like leaves are the most 

 attractive features of the valleys, but 

 as the grazing ranches are divided and 

 broken to the plow they are being 

 cut out and made into firewood and 

 there seems to be no attempt whatever 

 to make new plantings of this beauti- 

 ful and locally characteristic tree. I 

 shall always remember the live oaks 

 not only for their interesting growth, 

 but also for the grateful shade they 

 furnished during the heat of the day, 

 as the moment you step under the 

 branches of the live oak you feel a 

 coolness similar to that when going 

 into the florists' ice box while with all 

 other trees the foliage simply affords 

 relief from the strong sunlight with- 

 out any feeling of coolness in the air. 

 During my stay in the Santa Clara 

 valley the thermometer would go to 

 108 to 110 degrees during the middle 

 of the day; the air was clear and per- 

 Eectly dry, so that no one perspires 

 but the heat is felt in a burning or 

 prickling sensation on any exposed por- 

 tion of one's body. Nearly all the time 

 there was a fresh breeze blowing in 

 between the hills from the Pacific and 

 from four in the afternoon until ten 

 in the morning, the air was cool and 

 pleasant, and at night sleep was most 

 refreshing unless the California flea 

 was present to take a hand in welcom- 

 ing you to the country. 



It is the climate combined with the 

 fertility of the soil which makes Cali- 

 fornia so desirable for seed growing, 

 as during the harvest season there is 

 an entire absence of rain. Seed heads 

 develop and ripen and the harvest 

 proceeds steadily, yet without rush or 

 hurry, vines or seed heads are cut. 

 field by field, and spread on large 



