CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES. 



CHAPTER I. 

 VEGETABLE GROWING IN CALIFORNIA. 



Though California enjoys world-wide fame for fruits it is an 

 interesting fact that the state first won horticultural recognition 

 upon achievements in vegetable growing. Garden seeds were more 

 easily transported than trees and formed a part of the scant bag- 

 gage of many gold-seekers. Seeds were also freely sent by home 

 friends or quickly obtained on orders to eastern dealers as soon as 

 the agriculturists among the argonauts saw their opportunity in the 

 fabulous rates which esculents commanded. Results too were more 

 quickly secured with garden seeds than with fruit trees. Only a 

 few weeks after their planting the grower saw that he was dealing 

 with forcing and developing agencies in climate and soil more 

 effective than any he had known in his old home and he was quite 

 as surprised at his own achievements as his eastern friends were 

 incredulous of his descriptions of them. They were ready to believe 

 anything about gold, because their conception of a gold country 

 involved its traditional right to be fabulous, but such a concession 

 was not to be made to common vegetables. Eastern people knew 

 cabbages and beans and to attribute to them colossal dimensions 

 and to allege that they grew from seed to succotash without a drop 

 of rain was simply coarse lying. It is easy to see why a milder word 

 would be considered inadequate, for the following was one of Cali- 

 fornia's first horticultural proclamations : 



On land owned and cultivated by Mr. James Williams, of Santa Cruz, an 

 onion grew to the enormous weight of twenty-one pounds, and a turnip 

 was grown which equaled exactly in size the top of a flour barrel. On land 

 owned and cultivated by Thomas Fallen, a cabbage grew which measured, 



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