134 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES 



FIELD CULTURE OF BEANS IN CALIFORNIA. 



Though California has great bean producing capacity, the area 

 well suited to the product is comparatively limited and only a frac- 

 tion of that has conditions which favor the Lima bean as a field 

 crop. Making deductions from years of local experience it may be 

 stated that the summer heat and drought of the interior plains are 

 offensive to most varieties of the bean plant ; that occasional frosts 

 preclude the winter growth of the crop over wide areas where ordi- 

 nary winter temperature and moisture would favor it ; that summer 

 heat and drought modified by exposure to ocean influences or by 

 influences existing on interior river-bottom lands, are acceptable to 

 the plant and in such situations is the chief production. From a 

 commercial point of view it is also quite important that toward 

 the end of the season there should be a reduction of the amount of 

 moisture in the soil, so that the plant may cease its growth and 

 mature its seed before frosts occur or the fall rains make the har- 

 vesting difficult and stain the beans. Favoring conditions are thus 

 seen to be quite exacting. During the growing period of the plant 

 there must be: first, no frost (except in the growth of varieties 

 of the Broad Bean, which are measurably frost resistant) ; second, 

 the least possible duration of hot, dry winds, and a moderated at- 

 mospheric aridity generally; third, adequate moisture both in air 

 and soil to maintain healthful vegetative verdure followed by a 

 dry-soil-ripening period just as soon as the vines have filled pods 

 enough for a paying crop. 



Local Adaptations to Bean Growing. These conditions are 

 prescribed for a bean crop of the dry seed. They are all found in 

 eminent degree on the coast sides of six counties : San Luis Obispo, 

 Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego, and 

 these counties produce perhaps three-fourths of the commercial bean 

 crop of the state. Of course extensions of the region both north 

 and south along the coast have similar conditions though in less 

 degree deficiency enough to warrant the remanding of the chief 

 crop to the region named. Favorable conditions disappear with 

 even greater rapidity toward the interior. Each of the counties is 

 disposed on both sides of ridges of the Coast Range mountains. 

 The ocean-side lands produce the beans; the interior valleys of the 

 same counties, perhaps not over fifteen miles away, are beanless. 

 The mountain ridges exclude the ocean breeze and the occasional 

 fogs and mists, and bean plants would perish from dry heat before 

 a crop could be made. On the other hand, on the ocean side of the 

 mountains, beans are planted in May, after the rains are practically 

 over, and the ocean tempers heat and furnishes moisture to the air, 

 so that, by conservation of soil-water by good cultivation, the crop 

 is often made without a drop of rain from seed to harvest. 



On the moist or irrigated lands of the interior where heat and 

 atmospheric aridity are tempered by evaporation from large sup- 



