156 



CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES 



in less degree deficiency enough to warrant the remanding of 

 the chief crop to the region named. Favorable conditions disappear 

 with even greater rapidity toward the interior. Each of the counties 

 is disposed on both sides of ridges of the Coast Range mountains. 

 The ocean-side lands produce the beans; the interior valleys of the 

 same counties, perhaps not over fifteen miles away, are beanless. 

 The mountain ridges exclude the ocean breeze and the occasional 

 fogs and mists, and bean plants would perish from dry heat before 

 a crop could be made. On the other hand, on the ocean side of the 

 mountains, beans are planted in May, after the rains are practically 

 over, and the ocean tempers heat and furnishes moisture to the air, 

 so that, by conservation of soil-water by good cultivation, the crop 

 is often made without a drop of rain from seed to harvest. 



On the moist or irrigated lands of the interior where heat and 

 atmospheric aridity are tempered by evaporation from large supplies 

 of fresh water or moist soil, there are also conditions which suit 

 some varieties of beans very well, and good crops are made. But 

 on interior lowlands there is often a summer rising of moisture 

 from rivers, bank-full from melting mountain snows or other 

 sources, which interferes with proper ripening of the beans by 

 pushing the vegetative growth of the plants when they should be 

 maturing a crop already formed. If then early rains come, the bean 

 grower is apt to be caught with his work unfinished and his beans 

 stained or sprouting. However, these troubles are not serious 

 enough to cause the forsaking of the crop, and in an occasional year 

 of drought, when the southern coast counties do not get rainfall 

 enough to make their full crop, the grower on the interior lowlands 

 records a good profit. 



The total farm value of the field bean product of California 

 for the year 1909 is placed by the U. S. Census at $6,301,116, as 

 noted at the close of Chapter I. The largest bean crop harvested 

 was in 1911, the total of which, showing the relative standing of 

 different varieties, is as follows : 



Limas, sacks of 80 Ibs. each 1,300,000 



Pinks, sacks of 87 Ibs. each / 710,000 



Blackeyes, sacks of 80 Ibs. each 225,000 



Small Whites, sacks of 90 Ibs. each 215,000 



Bayos, sacks of 85 Ibs. each 150,000 



Large Whites, sacks of 92 Ibs. each 75,000 



Various, sacks of 80 Ibs. each 150,000 



Total sacks . . 2,825,000 



