100 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES 



benches and hillsides, as compared with the lower lands at their 

 feet only a few rods away perhaps. Warm protected slopes are 

 best for winter and the worst for summer vegetables. Shallow soil 

 spread on porous rock is non-retentive and warm for winter 

 growth, but it may be impossible, even with irrigation, to carry good 

 succulent growth on it during the blistering summer heat. Then 

 the deep loams of the creek borders and other level lands delight 

 the gardener with the largest returns for the least water. 



Nearness to Water Supply. The summer garden should be 

 near the water supply, if it be developed from home sources, or 

 the water should be piped to it, which is almost equivalent to mov- 

 ing the reservoir to the garden site. Carriage of water in a flume 

 entails losses by leakage and evaporation and earth-ditches are 

 distressingly wasteful by evaporation and percolation. One often 

 sees water started on its way from the home-site tanks toward a 

 distant garden, making mud-holes and losing volume all the way. 

 In many cases another well-outfit for the sole use of the garden 

 would be a good investment. 



Nearness to the Home. If fairly good conditions exist near 

 the home site, by all means locate the garden there. It will win 

 the interest and profits by the attention of the house folks and 

 will yield its supplies directly to their hands in most cases. Be- 

 sides, with the tools handy, spare hours now and then will be given 

 to its working when the leisure is too short to warrant or incline 

 one to walk to a distant patch. The time thus saved may almost 

 keep the garden going in good shape. Then, a well-kept garden 

 is an ornament and the ornamentation of our rural homes is not 

 usually over rich. 



Protection from Intrusion. To be any comfort and gratifica- 

 tion whatever the farm garden must be protected from intruders. 

 One of the chief objections to locating vegetable patches here and 

 there in the best situations for special purposes lies in the trouble 

 of excluding wild marauders of all sizes from a jack- rabbit to a 

 deer and the whole range of domestic invaders from the pasture or 

 corral. This fact alone compels many to forego vegetable planting 

 except in the well-fenced house-yard. It is not difficult to inclose 

 a few square rods with wire netting or with the woven fence of 

 wire and lath, and driven posts the whole to be rolled up and 

 stored or moved to another inclosure as the progress of the season 

 gives it new uses. 



