WHEN IS INTER-PLANTING REASONABLE? 91 



been under cultivation forty years and upwards, and yet is known 

 as garden soil. Much of this land is adobe, naturally remarkably 

 productive, aside from its benefits from overflow. Such soils have 

 proved able to produce, without apparent exhaustion, orchard trees 

 and the crops that are grown among them. There is an abundance 

 of artesian water for use when needed. It has been a common 

 custom in this artesian belt, so noted for strawberries, to grow 

 onions on the ridges between strawberry rows, and along the sides 

 of other berry bushes. Onions are thus grown during several suc- 

 cessive years until the ground is too crowded. Beets, carrots, peas, 

 and other vegetables are sometimes grown among the berries. 

 Crops of onion seed have been grown among the trees of young 

 orchards without irrigation and the trees have done quite as well 

 as when they had the ground all to themselves. Free use of the 

 cultivator has kept the ground loose and moist, after one or two 

 plowings. By irrigating in the fall, the ground can be plowed so 

 as to start peas, potatoes, onions and other hardy vegetables for 

 holiday sale, if the land is not liable to flooding in the late fall and 

 has only light frosts until mid-winter. 



Such land will carry all growths that can find standing room 

 on it, and fruit trees will not be injured by the inter-cropping. 

 Similar conditions are found on low, moist valley lands in many 

 parts fcf the state, both in the coast and the interior valleys. The 

 land has such wealth of plant food and moisture that summer 

 weed-killing, which is not common in California, is quite a prob- 

 lem. Where weeds will grow in spite of ordinarily good summer 

 Cultivation, the land will stand almost covering with useful plants 

 and it costs little more to grow them than to keep down the won- 

 derful weeds. 



But of course in inter-cropping all soils due regard must be 

 given to maintaining fertility by manuring even very rich soil will 

 not always endure inter-cropping, and poor soil will soon make it 

 unprofitable. Where hardy legumes like peas and brood beans can 

 be grown to advantage their roots and straw add to fertility and 

 they may pay their way thereby. But as a rule, inter-cropping 

 should be undertaken, if at all, on a basis of generous manuring 

 and ample water supply at low cost. The effort also demands 

 definite knowledge of the handling which the crop requires other- 

 wise a man is apt to emerge from a speculative venture at inter- 

 cropping with more wisdom than money. 



