238 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



pounds each ; the total weight of its fruit being more than 

 eight hundred pounds ! Elsewhere, sixty pounds is a very large 

 pumpkin or squash ; and there is scarcely a record in the At- 

 lantic States of a greater weight than one hundred pounds, 

 which has been frequently surpassed here. In 1857, one 

 squash- vine on the ranch of James Simmons, in Yuba County, 

 produced one hundred and. thirty squashes, weighing in all 

 twenty-six hundred and four pounds ! In the same year, J. Q. 

 A. Ballou, at San Jose, grew two squashes, weighing two hun- 

 dred and ten and two hundred and four pounds respectively. 



The largest Californian onion weighed forty-seven ounces 

 avoirdupois, and measured twenty-two inches in circumfer- 

 ence. Our onions generally excel those of the Eastern States 

 in size and weight. 



Our largest red beet, (a mangel-wurzel) weighed one hun- 

 dred and eighteen pounds was five feet long, and a foot in 

 diameter. It was three years old. The first year it grew to 

 weigh forty-eight pounds, and because of its large size was re- 

 served for seed ; but it disappointed its owner, and, instead of 

 producing seed the next year, merely kept on growing, and 

 reached the size of eighty-six pounds ; and the following year 

 got to a hundred and eighteen. Such beets can be grown in 

 abundance. A beet of twenty pounds is a wonder in New 

 York or London ; here it is too common to attract more than a 

 glance. Beets are frequently three feet long, so that it re- 

 quires no little trouble to dig them out. 



Our largest common white turnip weighed, I believe, twenty- 

 six pounds ; our largest carrot, ten pounds ; our largest water- 

 melon, sixty-five pounds. Our largest tomato measured twenty- 

 six inches in circumference. 



Our kitchen vegetables, grown in the open air, are in the 

 market during a greater part of the year than in any State 

 east of the Mississippi. We have cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, 

 turnips, beets, carrots, parsnips, radishes, horseradish, celery, 

 green onions, leeks, salsify, and parsley, throughout the year ; 



