24 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES 



five hundred miles apart. This demonstrates the breadth of Cali- 

 fornia's adaptation to great commercial production of vegetables. 



LOCAL VARIATIONS IN CLIMATE. 



Although it is possible to grow almost all vegetables every- 

 where in the state by intelligently selecting the proper time of the 

 year for each, which will be shown later, and although a few locali- 

 ties have climates so uniform and equable that by providing proper 

 moisture conditions nearly all vegetables can be grown all the year, 

 it is still possible to define regions with somewhat distinctive climatic 

 characters bearing upon garden and field growth of edible plants. 



Coast Valleys. The greatest volume of vegetable products of 

 California is at present grown in the coast valleys. This term 

 includes both well-defined valleys of greater or less breadth, and 

 stretches of rather flat or gently sloping land, open to ocean influ- 

 ences. It is a region extending the whole length of the state and 

 lying between the highest elevation of the Coast Range and the 

 ocean. In the upper half of the state it is composed chiefly of well- 

 defined valleys somewhat parallel to the coast, but protected by low 

 ranges which modify and mollify ocean influences, insuring higher 

 temperature and more gentle winds than are found directly on the 

 coast. In the southern part of the state the region chiefly consists 

 of broad areas quite open to the ocean but needing no barriers from 

 it because, owing to the trend of the coast, the lower latitude and the 

 greater distance south from the source of the prevailing air currents, 

 the ocean influences are themselves modified before they reach the 

 lands. In all this vast region, then, similar conditions prevail, locally 

 modified, however, enough to create some marked differences in 

 degree, which have been well utilized as the basis of special produc- 

 tion. Temperature rises and rainfall decreases as you proceed south- 

 ward. And yet though these differences may notably localize pro- 

 duction, the whole coast region north and south has this in common ; 

 it has a more equable and lower temperature and a more generous 

 rainfall than the interior valley at its own latitude ; it also has lighter 

 frosts, growing lighter still toward the south until it encloses regions 

 here and there which favoring topography makes practically frost- 

 less. Such situations favor all-the-year growth of the tenderest 

 vegetables, and perennial beans and tomato trees are possible. 



Interior Lowlands. The region next in importance in vege- 

 table production comprises the lower lands of the interior valleys. 

 They lie along the two great rivers of the northern and central parts 

 of California the Sacramento and San Joaquin and their tribu- 

 taries. These rivers flow from nearly two hundred miles, north and 

 south of their confluence, where they mingle their waters through 

 numerous sloughs until the joint streams pour through a gap in the 

 coast range into San Francisco Bay. The same gap which lets out 

 the waters admits the ocean current of moisture-laden wind and 

 moderates the heat of the entire interior valley, but naturally dis- 



