THE CHANCE FOR AMERICANS 15 



keep himself at the very front in materials and arts of production 

 in the growing and selling of vegetables that he has employed in 

 the growing and selling of fruit, we should hear far less of the 

 superiority of the foreigner in the vegetable garden. 



There have arisen during the last few years quite notable 

 instances of the truth of this claim, and almost everywhere in the 

 vicinity of towns some market gardens by Americans can be found. 

 The situation is well portrayed in the following paragraph from an 

 address at a Farmers' Institute by one of the most successful 

 vegetable growers of southern California : 7 



The business of -growing vegetables has grown step by step, until at 

 present it is a great industry, mostly in the hands of Asiatics. Yet in some 

 places white men are getting a share of the trade, and if they would combine 

 and exchange vegetables, as the Chinamen do, they would soon have the 

 bulk of the business. The people of California know no seasons for the 

 different vegetables, as they do at the east. They demand beets, lettuce, 

 onions, radishes, turnips, and cabbage the year round, and they want aspara- 

 gus, peas, parsnips, salsify, and cauliflowers nearly all the time. White men 

 should combine and exchange different kinds, for one man can hardly succeed 

 in having all varieties in the proper quantities, as different soils and locations 

 produce different results. But the average Californian does not take kindly 

 to the business. He considers it "puttering" work. Yet it is far ahead of 

 wheat raising. It takes study, and lots of it, to keep abreast of the times, 

 for we can not raise the vegetables of ten or twenty years ago and make 

 a success of the business. There has been as great improvement in vegetables 

 as in other things. There is scarcely a region in southern California where 

 an industrious, energetic man could not work up a trade along this line. 

 He should not expect to make a fortune in a few years, but after the first 

 few months he would have a steady income, increasing from time to time, 

 as he learned the wants of his customers and catered to them. 



Recent Achievements in Vegetable Growing. Although Cali- 

 fornia horticulturists as a class are charged with neglect of veg- 

 etable growing, and though it must be admitted that the term 

 horticulture and its derivatives are almost wholly used in California 

 to signify fruit growing, it is an important fact that we have still 

 vegetable growers who are able to win victories quite as notable 

 in their way as the great achievements of the gold era. The prizes 

 awarded by eastern seedsmen in competitions open to the whole 

 country show indisputably the eminence of California, and are the 

 more valuable because the weights are certified by the judges in 

 these contests : 



7 S. J. Murdock, Westminster, Orange County. 



