182 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES 



Some years when there have been low freight rates, or a partial 

 failure in eastern production, there have been very large shipments 

 in direct competition with the eastern grown cabbage in the early 

 autumn, and money has been made in selling California cabbage, 

 not as an early vegetable, but at prices which sauerkraut factories 

 were willing to pay. The eastern production has, however, been 

 more intelligently carried on during recent years, and California 

 producers have less opportunity in the farther east. In the great 

 central region of the country, however, California vegetable ship- 

 pers find a large market, and growing is done on a considerable 

 scale, but the aggregate is only a small fraction of what the state 

 could easily produce. 



The largest cabbage producing regions are the sandy loam 

 uplands bordering San Francisco on the south, the lowlands of 

 Santa Clara county, the reclaimed islands of the Sacramento and 

 San Joaquin rivers, and the valleys of southern California, both 

 on the coast and in the interior. The last named are the largest 

 producing districts for overland shipment, although the central 

 parts of the State often export largely. 



Cabbage is produced both in large areas wholly given to the 

 plant and by planting between young fruit trees, both in rainfall 

 and irrigated districts. As the cabbage is very largely a winter 

 crop in California, the water which it requires comes free from the 

 clouds or at low rates from the irrigating ditches. The chief objec- 

 tion to the crop is the great fluctuation in value from year to year. 

 It is hardly worth while at $15 per ton, and very profitable at $30 

 to $40 per ton, and the planting is large or small, according to the 

 preceding year's experience in selling, and this, of course, largely 

 influences the price of the new crop. An average crop of cabbage 

 would be perhaps, four tons to the acre and the average value $20 

 per ton or $80 gross value per acre. The cost at current rates for 

 labor would be about $30 per acre. 



The cabbage crop is chiefly grown for winter and spring gather- 

 ing. Interior southern situations produce heads ready for shipping as 

 early as February, and the shipment continues, including the later 

 coast regions in southern and central California, until April or later. 

 Thus California is able to reach the markets at the East when the 

 storage houses of Eastern regions are emptied of cabbage and the 

 sauerkraut barrels run low and to receive whatever high prices 

 may be available at that time of the year. 



