VEGETABLE GARDENING 



If, with his knowledge of vegetable-growiog, the gar- 

 dener combines good business and executive ability, 

 and an intimate knowledge of market conditions, he 

 should be able, however, to make it a profltable and at- 

 tractive business. Although the outlay is likely to be 

 large, the returns are direct and quick. Fig. 2644. 



There is a large literature devoted to vegetable-gar- 

 dening, although the greater part of it applies chiefly to 

 amateur or home-growing. Leading current books on 

 the general subject of vegeta- 

 ble - gardening are those by 

 Greiner, Green, Henderson, 

 Rawson and Landreth. For 

 California one should consult 

 Wickson's "California Vegeta- 

 bles in Garden and Field," and 

 for the Atlantic south, Rolf's 

 "Vegetable - Growing in the 

 South for Northern Markets." 

 There are many books devoted 

 to special topics, and there are 

 many others which in their 

 time were of great practical 

 value, but which are now chiefly 

 known as recording the history 

 of the epoch in which they were 

 written. Only one American 

 work has been devoted to de- 



VEGETABLE GARDENING 



1907 



are chiefly grown in gardens elsewhere, have become field 

 crops in California covering very large acreage. Such 

 enterprises attract American citizens and are changing 

 the popular conception of the dignity and opportunity 

 of vegetable-growing. A measure of this influence, as 

 well as of the extent of the product, may be had in the 

 statistics of the year 1900. In that year there were 

 shipped out of the state by rail and sea 51,400 tons of 

 green vegetables. The product of canned vegetables in 



iptK 



of 



1 of vege- ^=^. 



tables, as the works of Down 

 ing, Thomas, and others have 

 to varieties of fruits. This work 

 is Fearing Burr's "Field and 

 Garden Vegetables of America," 

 Boston, 186.3, and the abridg- 

 ment of it in 1860, called "Gar- 

 den Vegetables and How to 

 Cultivate Them." A full list of 

 the American vegetable - gar- 

 dening literature may be fotind 



in Bailey's "Principles of Vegetable-Gardening" (1901). 

 Persons who desire a cyclopedic account of vegetables 

 should consult Vilraorin's "Les Plantes Potagferes," the 

 first edition of which is published in London as "The 

 Vegetable Garden." L, jj, B. 



Vegetable-Growing in California. It is an interest- 

 ing fact that though California's horticultural promi- 

 nence now rests upon fruit products, the first attrac- 

 tion to the new state, after the gold discovery, was 

 the wonderful growth of garden vegetables. The re- 

 ports of immense size, of acreage product and of prices 

 secured, were almost incredible because so much in ad- 

 vance of ordinary standards, but the statements were so 

 fully authenticated that many were drawn to California 

 by them. These horticultural pioneers, however, soon 

 found that immigrants from Asia and the Mediterranean 

 region could, by their cheap living and by doing their 

 own work, cut under American growers who ha<l to 

 employ high-priced labor, and so the latter retired from 

 the field, leaving the opportunity to the frugal and 

 thrifty foreigner. Thus vegetable-growing, from an 

 American point of view, came into disrepute and largely 

 retains such disadvantage at present. The result is 

 that the American largely avoids market - gardening, 

 while Asiatics and South Europeans are thriving on it. 

 There has been a reflection of the same disfavor upon 

 farm growing of vegetables for home use, and our farm- 

 ing population, including the fruit-growers who should 

 know and do better, is largely dependent upon alien 

 vegetable peddlers or products of canneries instead of 

 fresh home-grown esculents, which would be cheaper and 

 inexpressibly better than canned ortransported supplies. 



Fortunately there are indications that this state of af- 

 fairs is changing. The uprising during the last decade 

 of a large industry in growing vegetables for overland 

 shipment and for canning seems to have clothed the 

 plant-cultures involved in this trade with new dignity 

 and importance which is attractive to American growers. 

 Cabbage, cauliflower and celery for eastern shipment, 

 peas and asparagus for canning and for shipment, to- 

 matoes for canning, etc., have all become large special 

 crops, while ^me other plants, like Lima beans, which 



1899 was: tomatoes, 583,061 cases; peas, 25,966 cases;, 

 asparagus, 105,881 cases; beans and other vegetables, 

 38,523 cases. Nearly all the vegetables included in the 

 above trade are of the higher classes, potatoes and 

 onions only moving in considerable quantities when ex- 

 ceptionally high prices prevail in the East. In addition 

 to the foregoing there is the bean shipment to eastern 

 markets, which reached a total of 73,150,000 pounds in 

 1895. but has been less each year since then because of 

 partial drought in the chief bean districts. 



California conditions aflfecting vegecable-growing are 

 wide and various. Nowhere else perhaps is it more es- 

 sential that certain things should be done just at the 

 right time and in the right way. If these requirements 

 are fairly met the product is large and fine; if they are 

 neglected the failure is sharp and complete. This fact 

 has given rise to the impression that California is a 

 hard place to grow vegetables, which is not true unless 

 one lacks local knowledge or the nerve to apply it. One 

 of the chief causes of failure is in following seasons 

 and methods which have yielded success under condi- 

 tions prevailing in the states east of the Sierra Nevada 

 mountains. If one begins garden-making in the spring- 

 time the plants do not secure deep rooting, which is 

 necessary to carry them to success in the dry season, 

 and the garden is likely to be a disappointment. If, on 

 the other hand, all the hardier vegetables are sown in 

 succession from September until February or March 

 there will be continuous produce through the winter 

 and into the early summer. The chief shipments of 

 vegetables from California are made during the late fall 

 and winter and are taken right from the ground to the 

 cars without protection or storage. Tender vegetables, 

 like corn, beans, tomatoes, etc., can, however, be grown 

 in the winter only in a few frostless places. They 

 must either be pushed to a finish in the fall or sown 

 early in the spring and carried into the dry summer as 

 far as necessary either by natural moist land or by irri- 

 gation. There are, however, a few localities where to- 

 matoes will fruit early in the spring from fall plantings, 

 and peppers will live through the winter and bear a 

 second season's crop on the old plants. 



The possession of an irrigation supply is the secret of 



