AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES 163 



For a generation previous to the war, bean-grow- 

 ing developed normally, production increasing as 

 wider success was attained in marketing until beans 

 moved by trainload and even Boston became a de- 

 pendency of the California bean fields. For many 

 years the product was chiefly from the central and 

 southern coast .counties (Begion 2 and 3, as defined 

 in Chapter I), the lima beans having always been 

 exclusively from the latter, while other beans came 

 to be also largely grown in Region 4 chiefly in the 

 central areas of the confluence of the Sacramento and 

 San Joaquin rivers. Thus bean-growing was ex- 

 tending naturally, adding new varieties and methods 

 and invading new districts as adaptations were dis- 

 closed and profitability demonstrated. Then came 

 the war, the exhortation to grow beans without limit, 

 the advancement of California to the position of first 

 bean state of the Union, all of which is most com- 

 pactly told in a figurative way, as follows : 



GREATEST BEAN STATES: VALUE OF PRODUCT TO GROWERS: 

 1909 1918 1919 



California $6.295,457 $47,952,000 $19,418,000 



Michigan 9,716,315 24,435,000 16,026.000 



New York 3,689,064 11,122,000 7,105,000 



California threw land recklessly into beans in 1918 

 and her chief gain from it was a demonstration of 

 producing capacity. It was impossible to get from 

 the product the valuation which current prices im- 

 puted to it because of distance from the great war 

 consumption in Europe and lack of shipping to reach 



