The California Vegetables in Garden and Field

THE CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES GARDEN AND FIELD A MANUAL OF PRACTICE, WITH AXD WITHOUT IRRIGATION, FOR SEMI-TROPICAI. COUNTRIES. -- . SECOND EDITION---REVISED AND EXTENDED. Dean and Professor of agricultur in the College of Agriculture of the University of California Director gnd Horticulturist of the Agricultural Experiment Station Author of California Fruits srfd How to Grow Them Editor of The Pacific Rural Press Member of the National Council ol Horticulture, etc. Of the very appreciative receptipn which the public accorded to the first edition of this work and the urgent demand for its reappearance, it is deeply regretted by the writer that the present edition has been so long delayed. It seemed, however, unavoidable. The yevision necessary to include later results of experience and observation and extension to fitly include the advancement of certain vegetables in commercial volume and importance and the methods of handling them, lagely developed by local study and experiment, have required much attention. In fact, the revision of the work has required a repetition of the same effort which was invoked in its initial prrparation, and for which the following claim was made in the preface to the First Edition There are very good reasons why the task of preparing such a book has been so long delayed. The subject is appalling in its intricacy. Conditions of soil and climate in California are varied to the last degree, and practice must varv with them. No matter how slrilful and snccessful a man may be in his particular locality, his experience can only be a safe guide to those who happen to work under similar conditions. For this reason, though there have been admirable local writers on garden practice from the beginning, their writings, no matter how diligently collected and how well printed, would not constitute a suggestive treatise unless the enquirer should analpze the local conditions and practice and translate them into terms of wide applicability. To do this it is necessary that the principlcs underlying the successful practice should be discerned and the significance of conditions be interpreted. This task could only be discharged by one who has had opportunity for wide coIlection of data, and for extended personal observation as well, and one for whom labor would be continually lightened by enthusiastic delight in the subject itself. All these advantages the writer can frankly claim, but how well they have been employed in this work it is for the reader to judge.