AGRICULTURE. 183 
The largest Californian onion weighed forty-seven* ounces 
avoirdupois, and measured twenty-two inches in circumference. 
Our onions generally excel those of the Eastern states in size 
and weight. 
Our largest red beet weighed one hundred 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 reserved 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 fre- 
quently are three feet long, so that it requires 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 circum- 
ference. 
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; 
green peas, string-beans, water-melons, cantaloupes, and nut- 
meg-melons, from June to November inclusive; tomatoes from 
May to October; garden-eggs, green okra, Lima-beans, and 
Californian sweet potatoes, from July to September ; aspara- 
gus from March to June; and rhubarb from April to July— 
the months being meant inclusively in every instance. These 
seasons for the different species of vegetables are, on an aver- 
age, twice as long as the seasons on the Atlantic slope of the 
continent in the same latitude. Our tables are thus supplied 
with a great variety of fresh and wholesome vegetables 
