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commercial plantings have been made both in Southern California and in th 

 San Joaquin Valley, but these are mainly experimental. 



The loquat is one of our neglected fruits. While it has been grown in 

 California for more than sixty years, and is found widely distributed over 

 the state as a dooryard and ornamental tree, the planting for commercial 

 purposes is practically limited to Orange County, where there are several 

 orchards of five to fourteen acres in extent. 



The Kaki or Japanese persimmon is a deciduous tree and therefore is not so 

 liable to frost injury. It is grown commercially to a limited extent along with 

 loquats, citrus fruits, and avocados in Orange and Los Angeles counties, while 

 plantings of a few trees for home use are found in nearly all parts of the state. 



The avocado is one of the newer fruits which is creating a great deal of 

 interest at the present time, especially in Southern California. Experimental 

 plantings are being made in Butte County and in some parts of the San Joaquin 

 Valley as well. 



Date growing in a commercial way is restricted to the hotter parts of the 

 Imperial and the Coachella valleys. 



SUGAR BEET CULTURE 

 By R. L. ADAMS, Assistant Professor of Agronomy 



Sugar beet culture is confined to the vicinity of sugar beet factories, their 

 culture seldom proving profitable at a distance greater than one hundred miles 

 from a factory. Their growing can therefore best be investigated in the 

 territory surrounding the factories at Alvarado, Anaheim, Betteravia, Chino, 

 Hamilton City, Huntington Beach, Oxnard, Spreckels, Santa Ana, and Visalia. 



Since the first six to eight tons of beets produced are required to pay the 

 cost of production, only soils capable of yielding good crops should be selected. 

 Soils should be avoided which are shallow, poorly drained, of poor texture, high 

 in alkali, lacking in plant food or humus, or incapable of adequately supplying 

 the moisture requirements of the crop. 



Land for sugar beets usually commands high prices $200 or more per acre 

 but can be rented on a share or cash basis, the former requiring as payment 

 one-fourth or one-fifth of the crop, the latter about $15 per acre. Where sugar 

 beets are the primary crop the farms range from 60 to 400 acres in size. As 

 a rule, however, 100 acres may be considered the unit farm. 



Sugar beet culture requires a high grade of work stock and special equipment, 

 amounting in all to about $2000 for each hundred acres. 



Land to go in sugar beets should be put in a fine state of cultivation by 

 the complete eradication of former crops as alfalfa or the subjection of raw 

 conditions as preceding beets with some other crop on newly broken lands. 

 It is essential to plow as deep as is consistent with the past handling of the 

 land and to work down to a fine, firm seedbed. The common practice is to do 

 the bulk of the heavy work in the fall after applying an irrigation, or early 

 in the rainy season after sufficient moisture falls to start the weeds and bring 

 the soil into the proper condition for working. The land is occasionally worked 

 over until seeding time, which ranges from November to May, depending on 

 the section, the bulk of the seeding, however, being done in February and March. 



