602 



CALIFORNIA TR L CK- GARDENING. 



rule. Yet even in mid-summer it retains a dark and 

 rich foliage quite unlike that of its parent, the 

 European beech, or its American congener. It is 

 said that the tree thrives best and holds its color 

 best along the seaboard, and it is certainly true that 

 the finest specimens are to be found in that section ; 

 but this may be due to the fact that they were 

 earliest planted about the easternmost cities, and 

 have attained sufficient age to show their full beau- 



ties. But we have seen fine specimens in the nur- 

 series of western New York, some of them as large 

 and good as the one shown in the illustration. 



The purple beech varies much in color, especially 

 when grown from seed. There is a most remark- 

 able example of this in a copse of these trees 

 attached to one of the old nurseries in Geneva, 

 N. Y. In the spring this plantation presents a 

 wonderful combination and variation of color. 



CALIFORNIA TRUCK-GARDENING. 



BOUT half a mile from where 

 I write is a piece of sandy soil 

 near the Alameda creek. 

 Twenty years ago it was consid- 

 ered too poor for anything but 

 pasture. Now it is worked by 

 several Italian gardeners who 

 supply this part of the valley, 

 and are yiuwin;,' rich from less than five acres of 

 land, for which they pay a yearly rental of ^150. 

 They irrigate constantly, and use an enormous 

 amount of stable-manure, as all successful truck- 

 gardeners do, but the especial feature of their sys- 

 tem that would interest a man from the Atlantic 

 states is that they use every inch of their land 

 for every day of the year. As in Italy, or Spain, 

 the climate is always in their favor. I should 

 hesitate to say what this land is worth as they use 

 it — it supports five men, and two families. Across 

 the lane is a tract of twenty acres of rather better 

 land, farmed by an old-time agriculturist, who gets 

 one crop a year. This season he had, on twenty 

 acres, about $150 worth of hay, above expenses, or 

 not more than the rental value of the smaller tract. 



The development of the truck-farming business of 

 late years in California has been quite as remarkable as 

 that of the orchard and vineyard interests, but, strange 

 to say, one hears very little about it. As a shipping in- 

 dustry, it is, of course, in winter-grown vegetables that 

 the bulk of the increase has occurred. 



I can best illustrate the ordinary condition of the San 

 Francisco winter markets, to which all the earliest dis- 

 tricts are tributary, by copying from my note-book a list 

 made at the time that the great snow storm in the 

 Sierras blockaded all the trains : endive, leeks, kohl 

 rabi, spinach, asparagus, green peas, string beans, cu- 

 cumbers, lettuce, artichokes, tomatoes, salsify, celery, 

 cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbages, new potatoes, 

 sweet potatoes, rhubarb, young onions, turnips, rad- 

 ishes, cress, fresh okra, parsley, kale — all grown in the 

 open air. Peas and string beans are in market every 

 day in the year. 



Carloads of vegetables are shipped to the mining 

 camps of the Rockies, and to Chicago, but the business 

 is as yet only in its infancy. Last year the railroads 

 carried about fifty million pounds of vegetables out of 

 California. Judging from the feeling in the leading 

 vegetable districts, five years will see this output 

 trebled. Capital is taking hold of the business, and 

 while it is especially attractive to foot-hill farmers and 

 colonists, some large tracts in the valley near San Fran- 

 cisco are considered worth more in vegetables than in 

 orchards. 



The first ripe tomatoes that I saw in San Francisco 

 this year were from the Los Angeles region, and sold 

 for forty cents a pound. Vacaville sends the best of 

 the early tomatoes, as a rule, and the best early cucum- 

 bers. There are a great many places in the California 

 foot-hills as far north as Red Bluffs where strawberries 

 ripen in the open air all winter, where red peppers keep 

 on blooming and ripening, and where water-melon 

 vines grow without ceasing. I have seen all the leading 

 sorts of vegetables grown in the open air in December 

 and January in various places in Shasta, Tehama, Butte, 

 El Dorado, Placer, Solano, Santa Clara, Alameda, and 

 many other northern and central counties, as well as in 

 the famous counties of the southern end of the state. 

 By April cartloads of peas and tomatoes can be gath- 

 ered ; by May string beans are abundant. A letter 

 from Los Angeles says : 



"From the first of December to the end of April 

 cauliflower, celery and cabbage should be shipped 

 from here by the hundred tons. From the ist of April 

 to the end of June tomatoes, green peas, new potatoes 

 and string beans ought to be shipped. " The same is true 

 of the warm slopes of the Santa Cruz coast range and 

 the Mission Peak and Livermore districts, where, if 

 necessary, ten thousand acres could be planted in early 

 vegetables. 



A truck-farmer near Oroville has lately printed a 

 statement of his operations. He employs fourteen 

 men on forty acres, planted in orchard and vegetables. 

 The crop of 1889 was as follows : 



"Peaches, eighty tons; apples, twelve tons; pears, 

 three tons ; apricots, ten tons ; nectarines, ten tons ; 

 plums, four tons; blackberries, ten tons; raspberries, 

 one and a half tons ; strawberries, two and a half tons ; 



