164 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES 



cropping period and growers are apt to look upon the soil as a 

 constant factor and wish that the weather could be placed in the 

 same category. 



VARIETIES FOR FIELD CULTURE. 



The Lima Bean. The Lima is the great bean of California so 

 far as the outside world is concerned, because though other beans 

 are grown everywhere, a small area of our state, as already men- 

 tioned, is especially adapted by its favoring local climate to the 

 growth of this rather exacting variety. The variety grown is the old 

 "Large Lima," well known to the trade and well adapted to the 

 region, and however popular the dwarf Limas may become as 

 garden varieties they do not promise to supplant the old sort in its 

 stronghold. Improved strains are being developed by the California 

 Experiment Station in co-operation with Ventura county growers, 

 and much greater yield to the plant is foreshadowed. Though the 

 Lima is a running bean no support is given it in field culture. It 

 is safe and comfortable reclining on the dry, warm soil, with its ver- 

 dure always freshened by the breezes of the Pacific, which lies in 

 plain sight of most fields. Thousands of acres are thus disposed 

 green and level as a meadow to the distant viewer the scene un- 

 marred by fence or other obstruction, for the fields are usually 

 subject to no unwelcome intrusion except hot blasts of air which 

 rarely beat back the ocean breeze and harm the plant. In most 

 years without a drop of summer rain and held in heart by the in- 

 sensible ocean vapor and occasionally by fog and mist, the Lima 

 bean often yields the grower an average of a ton to the acre of good 

 land, and sometimes does more than fifty per cent better than that. 

 On large, uneven tracts, the average would of course be less. In 

 1911 in Los Angeles county 1,364 acres yielded 22,000 sacks about 

 1,300 Ibs. to the acre. During recent years the price of Lima beans 

 has been reduced, but there still remains a narrow margin, because 

 production can be accomplished at less cost through improved 

 methods and machinery. There is also an association of Lima bean 

 growers which is assisting producers to secure all that the market 

 will warrant. Lima bean straw is an important by-product, as it 

 sells readily to stockfeeders at $4 to $5 per ton, according to the 

 demand in different years and in a time of scarce fodder has sold 

 as high as $15 per ton as a substitute for hay. 



The Small White Bean. This is the accepted local name for 

 the variety which is called the Navy bean at the east. The seed 



