IRRIGATION OF LIMA BEANS. 



CHIEF CROP OF VENTURA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA 

 SUGAR BEET CULTURE HAS BEEN INTRODUCED 

 WATER IS PLENTIFUL AND CAN BE EASILY APPLIED. 



THE valley of the Santa Clara River, of court, until the increasing value of 

 with the city of Ventura at its the lands for agricultural purposes drove 

 Pacific Ocean outlet, extends to the the vaqucro out, just as he had gradu- 

 northeast through an opening in the ally been ousted during the homestead 

 Santa Paula Mountains to the Mojave development of the West. The Mex- 

 desert. This gives rise to peculiar con- ican grants were for the most part con- 

 ditions. As might be expected, with a firmed, the status of ownership settled, 

 desert at one end and a seashore at the and titles cleared. From that time the 

 other, the soil is generally sandy, and development of the valle)^ has been con- 

 with the silts carried by the river, its sistent. if not rapid, 

 fertility is assured. The valley has pe- To tell a Ventura County man that he 

 culiar climatic conditions. In the sum- "doesn't know beans" might be ai- 

 mer months when a California sun beats most an insult, and would certainly dis- 

 down upon the desert, raising the tern- play an ignorance of the crop that has 

 perature there to extreme heights, and made Ventura famous. A compara- 

 when this heated air rises according to tively small area in beans in its south- 

 inviolable physical laws, the Santa Clara western part gives California an enviable 

 Valley acts as the draft door of a fur- place among the states which produce 

 nace, allowing the cool, moisture-laden this article of diet. With an annual 

 winds of the ocean to sweep in, bearing yield of about 30,000,000 pounds in this 

 fogs during the summer and rain clouds area, California ranks third, yielding to 

 in winter. The precipitation amounts New York and Michigan, 

 to an average of 16 inches a year, and Wheat, barley, and corn were the 

 the valley is exceptionally well supplied first crops tried, but the general foggy 

 with streams, which are either torrents weather, causing rust, settled the fate 

 or dry arroyos, according to the season, of the first of these three. Other local- 

 The wind at the delta end of the valley, ities could do as well or better with corn 

 with its drifting sands, would do much and barley, and, since specialization 

 damage were it not for wind-breaks of seems the keynote of California agri- 

 eucalyptus trees. culture, the ranchers of Ventura county 

 Under these peculiar conditions it was cast about for some other crop suitable to 

 only natural that a crop to fit them their fields, and decided on the lima bean, 

 should be evolved, and the bean repre- For a long time they were hampered by 

 sents the survival of the fittest. Agri- poor shipping facilities. Finally wharves 

 culture was first begun, with the excep- were built, and the coming of the railroad 

 tion of the little tilling of native Amer- gave direct communication with the 

 icans, in 1782 with the establishment of eastern markets. From 1886 the culti- 

 the mission San Buena Ventura. The vation of the bean supplanted all other 

 cultivated lands were for a long time in agriculture in the valley, and there was 

 the immediate vicinity of the mission considerable alarm on the score of over- 

 buildings, and later the wider areas of production ; but beans would keep in- 

 the valley, now fertile fields, were cattle definitely, and there was no disastrous 

 ranges, most of the land being under effect, except one year when more than 

 Mexican grants. About the centennial 50,000,000 pounds were produced when 

 year the lands were subdivided for cul- marketing facilities were very poor, 

 tivation and the usual differences of This was a number of years ago, and 

 opinion between cattlemen and farmers there has been no return of the con- 

 arose, with bitter encounters in and out dition. 



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