32 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES 







from access to the valley and then intense dry heat calls for ample 

 water supply, which, fortunately, however, is easily applied, because 

 at such season the rivers and sloughs are running full and if seep- 

 age is not enough, siphons or flood-gates admit water from the 

 high-running rivers, or pumps yield great volumes at little cost. 

 But the interior lowlands have another more grievous trait. As 

 they lie very low they are the scenes of the latest spring and earliest 

 autumn frosts and their season for tender vegetables is shorter 

 than that of the coast, though with their higher heat and copious 

 moisture their mid-season product of these tender crops may out- 

 volume a slower, longer season on the coast. But the earliest and 

 the latest tender vegetables do not come from the interior lowlands. 

 There are interior lowlands of wonderful producing capacity 

 at considerable distances from the confluence of the two rivers just 

 mentioned. For about three hundred miles the river lands extend 

 both northward and southward, offering an area of moist or easily 

 irrigated land of such fertility and extent that it suggests its own 

 ability to produce vegetables for the whole country. At present 

 hardly an appreciable fraction of one per cent of it is employed in 

 production for which it is best fitted. In the future its lower levels 

 will be the Holland and its upper extensions the Nile valley of 

 California. The farther these lowlands lie from the mouths of the 

 rivers the less they receive of coast influences. This gives the dis- 

 tant lowlands a higher temperature and greater forcing power upon 

 vegetation. The nights are warm as well as the days. Vegetables 

 of prodigious size and acre-crops which tax credulity, are the result 

 of the favoring conditions. But these lands are low and danger of 

 frost makes it necessary to select crops for hardiness during a part 

 of the year. 



Interior Plains and Foothills. Above and away from the low- 

 lands of the rivers and their deltas the interior plains stretch far as 

 the eye can reach, and rise, both on the east and west, into the foot- 

 hills of the Sierra Nevada and the coast ranges. In Southern Cal- 

 ifornia somewhat similar regions occur as the lands rise from the 

 coast flats to the mesas and foothills of the high, incurved mountain 

 range. There are similar climatic conditions prevailing through 

 these vast interior regions both north and south. The rainfall is 

 light as compared with the coast until the mountain climate is en- 

 countered at varying elevations, when it becomes even greater than 

 on the coast. The mean temperature is higher and, except in certain 



