VEGETABLES ON THE RANCHES 13 



scale and only for such vegetables as could be produced 

 with very little labor. Potatoes and turnips were rare and 

 of garden vegetables in general it may be said that until 

 the advent of foreign settlers they were scarcely culti- 

 vated." Bryant, who visited California in 1846 and ex- 

 amined the Los Angeles gardens, saw only onions, pota- 

 toes, red peppers and beans and added that he believed 

 other vegetables would grow as well as they. 



Illustrating the inability of the rancheros to understand 

 the wide applicability of the simple horticultural lessons 

 given at the missions, it is related that at the time of the 

 American settlement most of the Spanish families living 

 in different parts of Alameda and Contra Costa had their 

 garden patches near the Mission San Jose. They knew 

 fruit and vegetables would grow there, because they had 

 seen them in the mission gardens and they did not know 

 they would grow elsewhere and had not taken the trouble 

 to find out. Thus the Estudillos of San Leandro had their 

 garden patch at the Mission San Jose and transported 

 their vegetables 15 or 20 miles while right outside the door 

 of their house at San Leandro was the finest garden soil 

 in the world, and they did not know it ! 



Neither the mission gardeners nor the rancheros had any 

 idea of the capacity of the country for summer crops with- 

 out irrigation and without any adequate conception of the 

 offices of cultivation they could hardly have attained it. 

 Hence, not having the irrigation facilities which were de- 

 veloped at the missions, and not being inclined to any 

 labor by which their own lands could be irrigated, they 

 would naturally go to the water rather than attempt to 

 bring the water to their land for anything more than stock 

 and domestic uses. Almost at sight the American pioneer 

 horticulturists discerned possibilities and adaptations in 

 the soil and climate which their predecessors had not dis- 

 covered during 75 years of occupation. The relations of 

 race to horticultural progress are very interesting. 

 Vicissitudes of Early Vegetable Growing. Those who 



