CHAPTER IV. 

 VEGETABLE SOILS OF CALIFORNIA. 



Soils which favor the most satisfactory growth of vegetables 

 are those which are most easily maintained in a condition of tilth 

 to promote seed germination and rapid establishment of the seedling 

 in sure-growing contact with the soil-substance; soils which facili- 

 tate deep-root penetration by the advancing plant so that moisture 

 and plant food shall be rapidly reached, and which have sufficient 

 retentive power and capillarity to maintain adequate moisture within 

 reach of the roots and such amount of natural fertility that the plant 

 may attain the greatest growth in the least time. Soils with these 

 characters have also the" most valuable incidental qualities of 

 warmth, to foster vegetable processes; porosity to facilitate the 

 escape of surplus water and the entrance of the air with its con- 

 stituents which promote root action and modification of the soil 

 substance and absorptive power to readily receive and deeply dis- 

 tribute rainfall or irrigation. These are high requirements, for it 

 is an ideal soil which possesses them all. 



Ideal Soils Not Essential. Fortunately gardening art is amply 

 able to supply natural deficiencies in nearly all respects and, if he 

 is working for high-priced products on a comparatively small area, 

 the vegetable grower can often profitably make considerable expen- 

 diture for soil improvement. Market gardeners need no exhor- 

 tation in this line, but the home gardener should be urged not to 

 despair because of any refractory character in the soil he is obliged 

 to utilize. If he study the subject by the aid of most excellent 

 treatises recently written on the soil and its amelioration he can 

 proceed rationally and accomplish marvels with Will, Work and 

 Water upon almost any soil, from a brick yard to a desert. City 

 people have grown their table supplies on housetops ; no ruralist 

 can find a less productive subsoil. 



Light Rather Tlmn Heavy Soils. The characters already 

 cited point clearly to what is commonly designated as a rather 

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