92 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES. 



exists in many parts of California for facilitating winter 

 growth by drainage without at the same time endanger- 

 ing too great loss of water for summer cropping. The 

 back furrow gives the plants a greater depth of stirred 

 soil, which is especially valuable in the rainy season. Af- 

 ter the early crop of hardy vegetables is disposed of there 

 will still be time to plow down the ridges and put the 

 soil in receptive shape for the later winter or spring 

 rains, cultivating being done later to retain moisture until 

 the frost-free period arrives, when the same land will take 

 its summer crop of tender vegetables with or without 

 irrigation as the character of the soil, the proposed growth 

 and the local rainfall shall require. 



Raised Beds. A more elaborate application of the same 

 principles consists in the raised beds, which are very use- 

 ful for winter growth in the small garden and, in combina- 

 tion with irrigation by seepage, as already described in 

 the chapter on that subject, afford a means for applying 

 water or escaping from it as the conditions at any time 

 shall dictate. 



Another form is the permanent, bordered, raised bed 

 of the kitchen garden, which is very serviceable either 

 in farm or village growth of home supplies by hand work, 

 both in cultivation and sprinkling. This is the method 

 by which Mr. Ira W. Adams, one of our most resourceful 

 vegetable growers, applies the principle on a small scale : 



"I make my beds four feet wide and any length desired. 

 As my land is little on the adobe order, put on three or 

 four inches of fine creek sand and a very heavy dressing 

 of thoroughly decomposed mixture of cow, horse, pig, and 

 hen manure. My beds are twenty feet long and I confine 

 the soil in them by laying a round spruce pole on each 

 side, said pole being about six inches in diameter at one 

 end and five at the other ; a little larger or smaller will an- 

 swer. By driving a small stake at each end of these poles 

 and one in the middle, and fastening them to the pole by 

 a single nail in each stake, a great saving of space is 



