SUNDRY VEGETABLES 299 



appears in abundance after the fall rains. The plant is also grown 

 to a limited extent by foreign-born market gardeners, and some of 

 the improved garden varieties have been introduced for their use. 

 It can be grown as lettuce is, whenever the soil carries moisture 

 enough. 



GHERKIN. Cucumis anguria. 



This plant is different from the small pickling cucumbers 

 which are often called gherkins. It is a creeping, branching plant, 

 making a dense mat of stems well laden with small, oval fruit 

 covered with spine-like protuberances. It endures heat and drought 

 well, and is very prolific even in interior situations in California. 



KITCHEN HERBS. 



It is hardly desirable to enumerate a list of culinary herbs. 

 Each housewife has her own information and preference and be- 

 yond that her cook-book is an encyclopedia. Suffice it to say that 

 nearly the whole collection of plants grown in northern climates 

 for fragrant leaves or seeds is hardy in the California winter, and 

 most of them do best with early sowing as soon as the soil is well 

 moistened by the fall rains. Most failures with them are traceable 

 to sowing too late, which comes from following eastern practice. 

 Where the winter is quite frosty, fall sowing is less desirable, but 

 with February warmth the seed should be in the ground. Early 

 sowing enables the plants to secure good rooting, and with that, 

 growth can be carried later in the dry season. Late sowing causes 

 many a plant to dwindle in the summer heat even if irrigation is 

 afforded. It must also be remembered that many plants must be 

 diligently cultivated during our dry season which thrive without it 

 in the humid summer of other countries. 



MUSHROOMS. 



Field growth of mushrooms is abundant during the rainy sea- 

 son in California especially do the fall rains bring to view such 

 great quantities of them that they can be easily gathered by bushels. 

 The list of edible mushrooms in California includes many species 

 which afford a fine field for mycological epicures. Recently there 

 has arisen quite a producing interest in the line of cellar culture of 

 mushrooms chiefly by foreigners, and their methods are essentially 

 the same that are practiced elsewhere, descriptions of which are 



