CHAPTER II. 

 FARMER'S GARDENS IN CALIFORNIA. 



It has already been admitted that there has been, ever since 

 the development of large farming enterprises was seen to be pos- 

 sible in California, an indisposition on the part of our farmers to 

 engage in vegetable growing. Several reasons are urged as ex- 

 planatory of this very widespread sentiment and some of them may 

 be cited: 



First: The proper conduct of a large specialty farm gives no 

 time for gardening not even for the direction of work upon it 

 and it is better to buy vegetables than incur the worry of a garden 

 patch. 



Second: In small specialty farming on a limited acreage of 

 especially fitted and high-priced land, it is not profitable to set apart 

 land for vegetables when its yield in the special product may pay 

 several times the cost of purchased vegetables. 



Third: Success with vegetables in California is very difficult 

 to attain especially so in certain parts of the state and a farmer 

 is more apt to lose than to gain by any venture he may make in 

 that line. 



Fourth: It is impossible to have a garden without irrigation 

 water, even on lands which with ordinary rainfall will yield cereals 

 and carry productive deciduous fruit trees if they are given good 

 summer cultivation. 



How Far Are the Objections Tenable? It must be granted 

 that there is some force in the demurrer which the California 

 farmer often enters against his indictment for lack of thrift and 

 neglect of opportunities in not undertaking to produce his home 

 supply of fresh, crisp and wholesome vegetables instead of depend- 

 ing upon the stale and wilted goods of the itinerant vendors. It is 

 perfectly conceivable that, under certain conditions, the farmer had 

 better buy food supplies rather than produce them, consequently the 

 general denunciation of the unthrift of the California farmer, which 

 is often indulged in by those who know little of the local situation 

 and conditions, is really unwarranted. California conditions, both in 

 nature and in farm policy, are so varied that criticisms and upbraid- 

 ings are often misplaced. And yet it is perfectly true that vege- 

 tables should be grown on farms in California much more gener- 

 ally and in far greater variety than they have been hitherto. It is 

 not the intention of the writer to urge this improvement upon senti- 

 mental considerations nor to claim, as many seem inclined to do, 

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