14 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES 



did well, but there was not dash enough about market gardening 

 for Americans and it was soon given over to immigrants from the 

 south of Europe and China and has never been recovered. Field 

 growth of staple vegetables on a large scale has been continued 

 by Americans, but even in this line he has often been obliged to 

 withdraw from competition with Chinese, Portuguese and Italians 

 with their cheaper labor supply and living expenses. Great enter- 

 prises in live stock, wheat, wool and fruit afforded opportunities 

 more to the American taste than vegetable growing. The Ameri- 

 can settler had incomparably more energy and industrial ambition' 

 than his predecessors, the Mexicans, but he shared with them a 

 liking for doing his work in the saddle or on the seat of a riding 

 plow, cultivator or harvester. Within a decade from the date of 

 the American demonstration of the unique fitness of California 

 for vegetable growing there arose occasion for frequent exhorta- 

 tions to Californian farmers to restore the garden to its proper 

 place in farm plan and policy, and yet California farmers neglected 

 to supply their own tables and the proper adornment of their house 

 yards until the ranch home in this land of beauty and grand horti- 

 cultural opportunities became a byword for unthrift and desolation. 

 Some aspects of this matter will be presented in a following 

 chapter. 



Competition with Foreigners. One of the difficulties of the 

 present situation is that while the American-born Californian has 

 decried vegetable growing, the immigrant from southern Europe, 

 China and Japan have strongly entrenched themselves in it. Now 

 the competition which the American grower has to encounter is 

 depressing and discouraging. And yet the situation is not at all 

 hopeless. The foreigners are not, as a rule, progressive. They are 

 frugal and industrious to an extreme and they undertake a great 

 deal to please their customers with variety as well as low prices. 

 In some points the Arnerican competitor can learn from them to 

 advantage.: But it is quite easy to surpass them in quality by 

 constant effort for improved varieties, which they are slow to 

 introduce, .and to cheapen production by the use of horse labor and 

 improved tools, while they plod along with hand methods and appli- 

 ancesalthough it is only fair to admit that the Japanese are more 

 progressive and ambitious of leadership and proprietorship and there- 

 fore more formidable rivals. However, if the California farmer 

 should put forth the same effort to adapt conditions to ends and to 



