1911. 
27 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
POTATO GROWING IN CALIFORNIA. 
Every Winter for 10 or 12 years past potatoes 
have commanded a good price in the California mar¬ 
kets, even some years when the crop was large the 
price was fair. Many wiseacres believe this tuber 
will never be what was called cheap in this State 
any more. This is owing, I presume, to the fact 
that the potato-growing sections are limited, and more 
especially to the fact that the number of consumers 
is constantly increasing, as has been shown by the 
rapid growth of the ^State's population. There are 
good spots where potatoes can be grown in California, 
but there is too often a lack of water. One of the 
best sections for the growing of this vegetable is in 
the Salinas Valley; yet, recently, the crop has not 
been as largely grown as formerly, ow¬ 
ing. largely, to the fact that sugar beet 
growing is superseding it. Around Al¬ 
varado, in Alameda County, there were 
many fine potato fields on the washed 
or made lands about the mouths of 
Alameda creek. There being another 
beet-sugar factory here, the oldest in 
the State, if not in the United States, 
this tuber has given way to the beet, 
though some wise farmers rotate now 
and then with potatoes. In the same 
county, up on the hillsides above the 
town of Niles, the earliest potatoes in 
the State are produced—Winter tubers 
smaller than hens’ eggs that bring fancy 
prices. But the number of growers are 
few and the acreage rather limited. On 
the semi-sand hills of the peninsula 
south of San Francisco, many hundreds 
of acres of potatoes are grown annually. 
All through the truck gardens south of 
the metropolis and extending well down 
into San Mateo County, are gardens 
where intensive cropping is practiced. 
tatoes from the Salinas country and also about Alva¬ 
rado, heretofore mentioned. But the tubers are large 
and are liked by hotel and restaurant keepers. Usu¬ 
ally they do not command as high a price, though 
I believe in a fairly dry year many of these tubers 
are as fine and mealy as the best from other places 
which have a higher reputation for quality. 
I have often wondered why more gardeners did not 
grow larger acreages of potatoes. Some say that in 
years past many farmers lost heavily by growing this 
vegetable; those years were years of plenty and low 
prices. Many thousands of tons were piled along 
the levee where they were allowed to rot, as it did 
not pay to ship to the bay cities. But the times have 
changed. V Idle there are still some white gardeners 
institution. If this is so, it has set a pace that surely 
many white folk will be called upon to come up to, 
if not go beyond. Of course, Mrs. Phcebe Hearst’s 
benefactions are so large as to be perhaps, unap¬ 
proachable. 
When the Spring of 1910 came, stories were afloat 
that George Shima was going to surpass his former 
rake-off in the potato market. Rumor had it that he 
was out securing large acreages of land below Stock- 
ton and that he was going to plant townships of 
potatoes—that he had already secured 4,300 acres of 
splendid soil, and was buying potato seed wherever 
he could get it. But just how many acres he did se¬ 
cure or how many he planted, he was discreet enough 
to keep to himself. But now comes the story from 
Stockton that this potato-manipulator 
will surely clear $200,000 on the crop he 
raised, as well as on what he was able 
to corner. But he is said to deny that 
he has been trying to create a corner 
in the tubers. His crop was unusually 
large and, consequently, he had plenty 
to make him wealthy at the present 
price of this vegetable in the coast mar¬ 
kets—from $1.25 to $1.50 per hundred¬ 
weight, wholesale, right on the river 
bank. The report of this man’s large 
profit last Winter spurred others to 
plant more largely than hithertofore, so 
they, too, are reaping a good crop of 
coin for their trouble. w. a. pryal. 
California. 
CALIFORNIA TRUCK GROWER’S HOME. Fig. 15 
Never a trucker goes to the big city but he returns 
with a heaping load of manure, carefully enveloped 
in cloth coverings. Nearly all of these vegetable 
gardeners are Italians; they work their holdings for 
all there is in them, yea, and even more, it might be 
said. 
But withal there are so many potatoes grown near 
the big cities of San Francisco and Oakland, still, 
far from sufficient is produced to supply the de¬ 
mand. It is to the lands of the islands, and along 
the shores of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, 
mostly the former, that 
the great supply of this 
vegetable comes. Even 
then, some years, thou¬ 
sands of tons come from 
the far North—Oregon 
and sometimes Wash¬ 
ington. But I am quite 
sure California would be 
able to supply all her 
home demands if it were 
not for the fact that a 
large part of those sent 
to the San Francisco 
market are exported— 
they go to the islands 
of the Pacific, and even 
across the ocean. Some 
years, I am told, big 
shipments are made to 
the Philippines. 
The islands and some 
of the land along the 
big rivers of California, 
are ideal potato lands. 
Much of it was origin¬ 
ally covered with rushes 
or, as we call them here, 
tide. The filling of the 
rivers by the constant washing of debris from the 
hydraulic mines in the mountains, caused the rivers 
to fill up inordinately, and in seasons of big freshets, 
either caused by excessive rains or by sudden and 
rapid melting of the snow in the Sierra Nevada 
Mountains, the rivers would overflow their banks. At 
times these overflows have been as beneficial to the 
gardener as the annual overflow of the Nile is to the 
Egyptian soil cultivators. Much of the tide land was 
turned from marsh wastes into fruitful garden spots; 
at other times garden spots, especially up near the 
foothills, have been made barren wastes by the wash¬ 
ing upon them of rock and gravel. But to the low 
lands only the finer silt was conveyed, all of which 
in time made the best of garden soil. The value of 
these island-gardens soared up into fabulous prices, 
as they became in great demand. Some of the finest 
asparagus land in the world is found on these islands 
and along the river banks on the mainland. Generally 
the potatoes are not considered so good as the po¬ 
on these islands, they are fast being crowded out by 
Chinese and Japanese gardeners, mostly the latter. 
They pay big rentals for land in this famous garden 
section. Last year one of these Japanese gardeners 
jumped into the commercial limelight by clearing in 
a single season an hitherto unknown fortune out of 
potatoes. FI is clearings were reported to be $25,000. 
He was at once dubbed the “Potato King of the West.” 
Whether he swelled up with conceit or not, I never 
learned. I know, however, that he felt his impor¬ 
tance as a good citizen of the world, and at once 
A HANDY GATE FASTENER. 
The season for repairing farm gates 
will soon be at hand, and some gates 
will require new fasteners. A durable 
gate fastener that will receive the gate 
when slammed and hold it securely, as 
well as one that can be operated from 
horseback and yet cannot be lifted by stock, can be 
made and applied by a blacksmith or any one of a 
mechanical turn. It is made of two pieces of common 
flat iron b, one inch wide, each 14 inches long, shaped 
in manner shown in Fig. 13, swung at c by means 
of a 3j4-inch bolt through a piece of bar iron, a, 
114 inch by 1^4 inches in diameter, eight inches 
longj plus diameter of post to which it is fastened 
by a nut on the threaded end, the portion which 
passes through the post being rounded. The ends, d, 
may be either welded together or fastened with a 
bolt and a loop may be 
arranged onto the bolt 
to assist in lifting the 
fastener, shown in de¬ 
tail by /. Gate is shown 
in closed position by e. 
An iron plate, g, may be 
fastened to gate where 
it .strikes fastener to 
save wear on gate. 
Texas, victor laradie. 
AN ALFALFA PLANT GONE TO SEED, SENECA CO., N, Y. Fig. 10. 
came to live in a civilized community. He purchased 
a fine house on a corner of one of the high-toned 
residential streets in Berkeley, not far from where I 
live. At first the people in the neighborhood raised 
objections to having a Japanese living in their midst— 
those Berkeley people are somewhat exclusive, though 
nearly every last one of them will hire Japanese help 
in their homes to the exclusion of white help. At any 
rate, George Shima, for that is the potato king’s 
name, held his fort and at once proceeded to make 
it one of the attractive spots on College Avenue. He 
hired gardeners from the Flowery Land, and a veri¬ 
table Japanese garden soon surrounded his home. 
Some one must have given the potato king the hint 
that to be a good denizen of the University City he 
could not do better than to bestow a goodly por¬ 
tion of his newly-acquired potato-money upon the 
university. Just as to the truth of this I am unin¬ 
formed, but rumor had it that he sent a check in the 
sum of $2,000 to the Agricultural Department of the 
ALFALFA SEED IN 
NEW YORK. — F. R. 
Stevens sends us the 
picture shown at Fig. 
16, this page. We have 
seen specimens of Al¬ 
falfa plants grown near 
Geneva that were well 
covered with strong 
seed. Mr. Stevens says : 
“I am enclosing here¬ 
with a picture of Alfalfa 
thoroughly gone to seed. 
It is growing between a 
double fence surround¬ 
ing a garden, and -has 
not been cut for some 
years. The taller man in the background of the 
picture is fully six feet high, and he is standing on 
a level with the ground at the roots of the Alfalfa. 
From within a foot of the ground to the very top, 
this Alfalfa is loaded with seed and has been so 
loaded for the past two or three years. This may 
tend to disprove two theories of the growing of Al¬ 
falfa in this State; one that Alfalfa will not seed in 
the East, and the other that the allowing of Alfalfa 
to mature materially weakens it. The picture was 
taken in Cayuga County, New York, along the Lehigh 
Valley Railroad.” 
Suppose you got just what you deserve—no more and 
no less. Would you be better or worse off than you are 
now? 
One of the earliest medical fakes was Issued nearly 
300 years ago. It was a secret remedy for falling hair. 
When the price was paid the victim found that he or she 
was advised to use the fat of a rat as hair restorer! 
It was said that the Chinese really used the remedy. 
