AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES 157 



California. The mild winter does not freeze hardy 

 vegetables; consequently they are allowed to grow 

 until the shipping season arrives, as in the case of 

 celery, cabbage, parsnips, salsify, and the like, or are 

 gathered, sacked and placed under some cheap shel- 

 ter from the rains, as in the case of potatoes, beets, 

 and carrots. No storage pits nor cellars are thought 

 of. In fact, the most direct and cheapest method of 

 loading cars is employed in many instances, for rail- 

 way spurs are carried into the center of the celery, 

 cauliflower and cabbage fields, the crates filled and 

 the cars loaded from the ground on which the crops 

 were grown. This not only reduces the cost of han- 

 dling and eliminates the expense of storage, but it en- 

 ables the grower to supply the winter and spring 

 markets on the Atlantic side, in the Middle West and 

 the great interior plateau, as well as the North Pa- 

 cific coast territory of the United States and Canada, 

 with vegetables fresh from the soil. 



California has in different parts of the State large 

 areas of land excellently adapted to the various ex- 

 port vegetables which are proving profitable. The 

 soils are various, and yet all in the truck-farming 

 class, viz., deep sandy and medium loams of the 

 plains, warm, easily worked and rich; alluvial soils 

 of both ancient and recent origin, holding moisture 

 well and full of plant-food; peat and sediment soils, 

 reclaimed in vast areas by dikes, as in Holland (ex- 

 cept that the excluded water is chiefly fresh), ex- 

 ceedingly productive and particularly adapted to the 

 great crops of celery and asparagus. 



