LOCAL ADAPTATIONS 155 



profitably sold. Whenever there is a falling off in local production 

 of the common varieties east of the Rocky mountains, California 

 shipments are freely made, and when, many years ago, there was 

 a full train-load sold for Boston, California embraced not only the 

 profit thereof, but the proud satisfaction that she was really doing 

 something worth while for the maintenance of the intellectual 

 standard of the country. Train loads of beans have now become 

 too common to attract notice. 



FIELD CULTURE OF BEANS IN CALIFORNIA. 



Though California has great bean producing capacity, the area 

 well suited to the product is comparatively limited and only a frac- 

 tion of that has conditions which favor the Lima bean as a field 

 crop. Making deductions from years of local experience it may be 

 stated that the summer heat and drought of the interior plains are 

 offensive to most varieties of the bean plant ; that occasional frosts 

 preclude the winter growth of the crop over wide areas where ordi- 

 nary winter temperature and moisture would favor it ; that summer 

 heat and drought modified by exposure to ocean influences or by 

 influences existing on interior river-bottom lands, are acceptable 

 to the plant and in such situations is the chief production. From a 

 commercial point of view it is also quite important that towards 

 the end of the season there should be a reduction of the amount of 

 moisture in the soil, so that the plant may cease its growth and 

 mature its seed before the fall rains make the harvesting difficult 

 and stain the beans. Favoring conditions are thus seen to be quite 

 exacting. During the growing period of the plant there must be : 

 first, no frost ; second, the least possible duration of hot, dry winds, 

 and a moderated atmospheric aridity generally; third, adequate 

 moisture both in air and soil to maintain healthful vegetative 

 verdure followed by a dry-soil-ripening period just as soon as the 

 vines have filled pods enough for a paying crop. 



Local Adaptations to Bean Growing. These conditions are 

 prescribed for a bean .crop of the dry seed. They are all found in 

 eminent degree on the coast sides of six counties : San Luis 

 Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, and San 

 Diego, and these counties produce perhaps nine-tenths of the com- 

 mercial bean crop of the state. Of course extensions of the region 

 both north and south along the coast have similar conditions though 



