264 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES 



at certain times of the year, it has since been shown that much less 

 can be profitably done in this direction than was anticipated. There 

 have been in some years very large shipments at reduced freight 

 rates when the eastern production was deficient, but the potato is 

 ordinarily too cheap an article to endure the cost of long transpor- 

 tation. Statistics of the California product are given in Chapter I. 



Situations. Though, as has been stated, the potato grows 

 wherever adequate moisture is assured, there is much difference 

 in the times of the year at which maturity is attained. Though 

 the potato is a tender plant it will endure light frosts, nor does it 

 always yield its life when the frost blights the foliage. Dormant 

 buds lower on the stem develop into a new top growth. It is, there- 

 fore, possible to secure fall and even winter growth in places where 

 a strictly tender plant like the bean would perish. Where only 

 light frosts occur and where irrigation is provided to supplement 

 rainfall, it is possible to have new potatoes all the year and to bring 

 to edible condition three crops successively on the same ground 

 within a twelve month, though it is, of course, better to let the 

 potato take its place in a rotation. 



New Potatoes. The first new potatoes from a California point 

 of view, would be the crop that comes with the first green peas, 

 counting July 1 as the beginning of the year. In fact the first po- 

 tatoes and peas come from the same localities. They make their 

 growth in the fall from planting on ground well soaked by irriga- 

 tion in July and August. The regions for this work are those in 

 which fall frosts are light or do not occur at all the thermal belts 

 at different elevations on the hillsides both on the Coast Range and 

 the Sierra Nevada, also on the warm interior plains, but not usually 

 on the river bottoms nor on the low places in small valleys. Owing, 

 however, to the partial resistance to frost of the potato, there are 

 very wide areas both on the coast and in the interior of central and 

 southern California, where the fall growth of potatoes is safe and 

 worth wider attention than is given to it by home gardeners. Where 

 irrigation may be had to start the seed well the fall rains usually 

 carry on the growth. 



Planting for what may be called the second run of new pota- 

 toes requires stricter attention to thermal conditions. This crop 

 must be growing in December and January, which are our months 

 of heaviest frosts and rainfall usually. Strictly thermal belts, to be 

 found at different elevations on hillsides, generally within the reach 

 of ocean influences in the south half of the California coast line, but 



