RIVER LAND VEGETABLES. 31 



moderator of heat and drought during that period and 

 supplements the supply of aqueous vapor which rises by 

 evaporation from the immense acreage of tule swamps 

 and shallow lakes which surround the tillable lands of 

 the region. Climatic conditions in this large interior area 

 favor the growth of vegetables and its producing capa- 

 city is beyond any present commercial use which can be 

 made of it. But though it has a temporary coast modi- 

 fication, as has been stated it falls back into interior habits 

 when restraint is removed. It has intervals of hot, dry 

 winds which exclude the coast winds from access to the 

 valley and then intense dry heat calls for ample water 

 supply, which, fortunately, however, is easily applied, 

 because at such season the rivers and sloughs are running 

 full and if seepage is not enough, siphons or flood-gates 

 admit water from the high-running rivers or pumps yield 

 great volumes at little cost. But the interior lowlands 

 have another more grievous trait. As they lie low they 

 are the scenes of the latest spring and earliest autumn 

 frosts and their season for tender vegetables is shorter 

 than that of the coast, though with their higher heat and 

 copious moisture their mid-season product of these ten- 

 der crops may out-volume a slower, longer season on the 

 coast. But the earliest and the latest tender vegetables 

 do not come from the interior lowlands. 



There are interior lowlands of wonderful producing 

 capacity at considerable distances from the confluence of 

 the two rivers just mentioned. For about three hundred 

 miles the river lands extend both northward and south- 

 ward, offering an area of moist or easily-irrigated land of 

 such fertility and extent that it suggests its own ability 

 to produce vegetables for the whole country. At present 

 hardly an appreciable fraction of one per cent of it is 

 employed in production for which it is best fitted. In the 

 future its lower levels will be the Holland and its upper 

 extensions the Nile valley of California. The farther these 

 lowlands lie from the mouths of the rivers the less they re- 



