500 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
ity, but incline to be watery. The tuber is largely imported from Utah 
under the name and style of ‘‘ Salt Lake potatoes,” albeit much that is 
sold under that brand is of California growth. The sweet-potato flour- 
ishes especially in the lighter soils of the coast south of San Francisco ; 
its quality would not be likely to be criticised by any but those who 
have been accustomed to the product of the Gulf States or of the An- 
tilles. 
The big pumpkins of California have acquired a world-wide reputation 
not unlike that enjoyed by the seaserpent. The unprejudiced observer, 
however, readily appreciates the fact that when a well organized pump- 
kin has ten months’ time to grow instead of three or four, it has every 
reason to give a corresponding account of its stewardship. But while a 
laudable ambition to excel may result in the production of three-hun- 
dred-pound pumpkins, it is but fair to say they are not the rule; being 
inconvenient to handle, and, like other organisms exceeding a certain 
age, inclined to be hard and tough. The same is true of mammoth 
beets (mangel-wurzel), carrots and turnips, which, when left out in the 
field during a mild winter, continue incontinently to grow and develop 
until the time comes to put in another crop. . The dairy-men and stock- 
breeders raise these crops largely and are chiefly responsible for the pro- 
duction of the monsters. 
The sugar-beet succeeds admirably in a large portion of the State, and 
in appropriate locations yields a juice of extraordinary richness; as 
much as 19 per cent. is clarified in some cases (but I can vouch for 15 
only from personal experience), and a fair degree of purity. Several 
prosperous beet-sugar factories already exist, the failures reported hav- 
ing apparently been due to mismanagement. It is difficult to see why, 
with such material and the possibility of keeping up the supply for nine 
months by the planting of successive crops, this industry should not be- 
come one of the most important and lucrative in the State, and fully 
able to compete with any sugar-cane planting that may hereafter be in- 
troduced in the southern portion of the coast. 
Hop growing is an important industry in the middle portion of the 
State, especially in the Sacramento Valley and in the Russian River 
region, north of San Francisco Bay. The product is of excellent quality, 
and is much sought after by Eastern brewers. 
Of other crops of minor or only local importance may be mentioned 
the culture of pea-nuts, chiefly in the coast region south of San Fran- 
cisco; of the chiccory root, in the neighborhood of Stockton, supplying a 
large amount of the parched and ground “old government Java coffee” 
sold by grocers. In the same neighborhood the culture of the “ Persian 
insect-powder plant” (Pyrethrum carneum) is being successfully carried 
out, the product being in very general requisition on account of the 
prevailing abundance of fleas. This neighborhood supplies a quality of 
mustard that is somewhat overwhelming to the novice, and even for 
plasters should be diluted with flour. Were rape-seed oil in demand, 
the fact that the whole State is overrun with the plant that produces it, 
as a most troublesome weed, proves what could be done with it if fos- 
tered. 
HORTICULTURAL PRODUCTS. 
Nothing, probably, strikes the new-comer to California more forcibly, 
and nothing certainly more agreeably, than the advantages offered by a 
climate where plants can ordinarily be kept growing from ten to twelve 
months in the year, provided water is supplied. The immigrant desir- 
ing to make a home for himself is delighted to find that the rapid growth 
