222 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES. 



esculents of the cabbage family. The climate favors pro- 

 duction and shipment at a time when the Eastern markets 

 have only stored cabbage, and California cauliflower is 

 harvested in splendid size and quality all through the win- 

 ter months, so that the crop is disposed of before the East- 

 ern grower can trust his small plants to the open air. 

 Some years when there have been low freight rates or a 

 partial failure in Eastern production, there have been very 

 large shipments in direct competition with the Eastern 

 grown cabbage in the early autumn, and money has been 

 made in selling California cabbage, not as an early vege- 

 table, but at prices which sauerkraut factories were willing 

 to pay. The Eastern production has, however, been more 

 intelligently carried on during recent years, and California 

 producers have less opportunity in the farther East. In 

 the great central region of the country, however, Cali- 

 fornia vegetable shippers find a large market, and growing 

 is done on a considerable scale, but the aggregate is only 

 a small fraction of what the State could easily produce. 



The largest cabbage producing regions are the sandy 

 loam uplands bordering San Francisco on the south, the 

 lowlands of Santa Clara county, the reclaimed islands of 

 the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and the valleys 

 of southern California, both on the coast and in the in- 

 terior. The last named are the largest producing districts 

 for overland shipment, although the central parts of the 

 State often export largely. About a thousand carloads 

 went out of the State during the winter of 1908. 



Cabbage is produced both in large areas wholly given to 

 the plant and by planting between young fruit trees, both 

 in rainfall and irrigated districts. As the cabbage is very 

 largely a winter crop in California, the water which it re- 

 quires comes free from the clouds or at low rates from the 

 irrigating ditches. The cliief objection to the crop is the 

 great fluctuation in value from year to year. It is hardly 

 worth while at $15 per ton, and very profitable at $30 to 

 $40 per ton, and the planting is large or small, according 

 to the preceding year's experience in selling, and this, of 



