CHAPTER VII. 

 CULTIVATION. 



The timely and thorough performance of the several 

 acts which, in accordance with the prevailing local con- 

 ditions, constitute good tillage, are indispensable to suc- 

 cess in California vegetable growing. No matter how 

 favorable the natural conditions or how generous the 

 other provisions made by the grower, to be dilatory or 

 slack in cultivation is to seriously endanger, if not to 

 actually forfeit, the final reward. 



The American pioneers were quick to see that the en- 

 ergetic use of the good tools to which they had been 

 trained in their old homes would bring marvelous produc- 

 tion from lands previously held at grazing value, and, 

 beginning with this assurance, they proceeded by lessons 

 of observation and experience until they learned proper 

 times and ways of working under the novel natural con- 

 ditions which surrounded them. They also accomplished 

 modifications in tools for tillage, which, from a local point 

 of view, are notable improvements, and they devised new 

 forms to meet special conditions or purposes. By this 

 empirical method they ministered to their own success 

 and incidentally demonstrated the truth of some advanced 

 theories of tillage which had won but slight recognition 

 from the conservative spirit of the older countries. It is 

 an interesting fact, also, that prevailing California prac- 

 tice, in some important regards, accords more closely with 

 principles deduced from elaborate experimentation by the 

 most acute and patient students of soil physics, than does 

 the common practice of older countries. 



With tillage, as with other gardening duties to which 

 reference has been made, there are in California wider 



