VARIETIES AND SOILS FOR PEPPERS 261 



to wilt after gathering before they are put on the string. This 

 work is done by running a twine through the stem of each chile, 

 the twine to be 10^ to 11 feet, and same may be hung on a scaffold 

 to dry or put into especially made evaporators. Some growers 

 report favorably on drying their crop on trays instead of on twine. 

 During recent years most of the drying has been done in evapo- 

 rators, which is accomplished by artificial heat in six or eight days. 



Soils for the Commercial Crop. Although peppers can be suc- 

 cessfully grown in any good garden soil, it is important for the 

 field crop to choose deep, rich, sandy loam, or sediment soil, which 

 will not bake very rapidly. The young plants must be set in damp 

 soil and if land should easily bake it will become hard and will dry 

 out more readily about the young plant and the growth will be 

 very slow. It is not wise to grow more than two crops of peppers 

 on even the best of soils without fertilizing very liberally. Cover 

 crops plowed under are found very profitable. 



The Yield. At Garden Grove in Orange county in 1911 Allen 

 Brothers grew twenty-five acres which averaged a ton of cured 

 peppers to the acre. The price received ranged from $180 to $200 

 per ton. Besides the crop of ripe peppers produced and sold by 

 the firm, 75 tons of green peppers were marketed at $175 per 

 cured ton. Four other large chile dryers were at work in 1911 in 

 the same vicinity. 



Varieties. The varieties chiefly grown for home use and mar- 

 keting green are Large Bell or Bull-nose, an early variety of mild 

 flavor, fruit large, slightly tapering and generally terminating in 

 four obtuse, cone-like points. It is a favorite sort, both for pickling 

 and for table use. Sweet Mountain is another popular variety sim- 

 ilar to the foregoing, but larger and milder in flavor, and Chinese 

 Giant is an immense pepper, often twice as large as Large Bell. 



The standard for hot pepper and for the dried crop is the 

 Mexican chile, long, narrow pods on a low-growing, narrow- leaved 

 plant. One type is a very dark, thick-meated, cone-shaped chile, 

 growing from 4 to 6 inches long, which is gaining ground; while 

 the Long Red, or Anaheim Chile, having pods from 6 to 10 inches 

 long, is the best known. The plant is strong and holds its fruit up 

 well and is very productive. There is also a longer variety with 

 pods up to fourteen inches in length, which, however, is claimed 

 to be less productive and light when dried, though the flesh is 

 quite thick when green. 



