CHAPTER I. 

 VEGETABLE GROWING IN CALIFORNIA. 



Though California enjoys world-wide fame for fruits it 

 is an interesting fact that the State first won horticultural 

 recognition by achievements in vegetable growing. Gar- 

 den seeds were more easily transported than trees and 

 formed a part of the scant baggage of many gold-seekers. 

 Seeds were also freely sent by home friends or quickly ob- 

 tained on orders to Eastern dealers as soon as the agri- 

 culturists among the argonauts saw their opportunity in 

 the fabulous rates which esculents commanded. Results 

 too were more quickly secured with garden seeds than 

 with fruit trees. Only a few weeks after their planting 

 the grower saw that he was dealing with forcing and de- 

 veloping agencies in climate and soil more effective than 

 any he had known in his old home and he was quite as sur- 

 priesd at his own achievements as his Eastern friends were 

 incredulous of his descriptions of them. They were ready 

 to believe anything about gold, because their conception 

 of a gold country involved its traditional right to be fa- 

 bulous, but such a concession was not to be made to com- 

 mon vegetables. Eastern people knew cabbages and beans 

 and to attribute to them colossal dimensions and to allege 

 that they grew from seed to succotash without a drop of 

 rain was simply coarse lying. It is easy to see why a 

 milder word would be considered inadequate, for the fol- 

 lowing was one of California's first horticultural procla- 

 mations : 



"On land owned and cultivated by Mr. James Williams, 

 of Santa Cruz, an onion grew to the enormous weight of 

 21 pounds, and a turnip was grown which equaled exactly 

 in size the top of a flour barrel. On land owned and cul- 



