BOARD OF HORTICULTURE 103 



gatioii, are most fertile spots for the fruit growers. Perhaps nowhere do apples, 

 pears, cherries, prunes, walnuts, almoiids and strawberries grow to greater per- 

 fectioii as to size, flavor and color than in these Valleys. 



A paper was recently read at a Farmers' Institute lield at La Grande in which 

 the writer said : "At Cove — the garden spot of the Grande Ronde Valley — and here 

 at La Grande, instaiices have heen reported and verified wliere over five hundred 

 doUars have beeu received for the product of a single acre of Jacunda straw- 

 berries, while there is no place under the sun where red raspberries do better 

 than here." He considers the apide. the pear and the cherry the most profitable 

 fruits for that locality. The fruits grown there, on account of the high elevation 

 and climatic influences, have peculiar keeping qualities ; the cherries, owing to 

 the absence of rain during the ripening season, do not crack open and, by reason 

 of so much sunshine, color highly and come into market late, and consequently 

 always bring remunerative prices. The Hood River Valley and foothills have 

 become especially famous for their apples and strawberries. 



Southern Oregon, with its decomposed granite soils, as found in the Rogue 

 River and Umpqua Valleys, offers the same advantage for horticulture and, at 

 no distant day, will be a veritable paradise for the fruitgrower. Its soils are 

 naturally very rieh in all plant foods necessary to produce excellent fruit, com- 

 bined with a climate unsurpassed anywhere in this fair land of ours. The vast 

 mining districts of this section furnish a very good local market for the small 

 grower, while most commercial growers will prefer and do ship their products to 

 the East, England, Germany and France, where these fruits have found already 

 a very profitable market; thus showing what these Valleys can produce, and 

 which opened another and unlimited market for the wide-awake fruitgrower. 

 Intelligent endeavor, honest packing, brains and application of business principles 

 which hereafter must be adopted in order to be successful in horticultural pur- 

 suits, has its own rewards. Peaches, apricots, pears, prunes, walnuts, almonds, 

 ehestnuts. filberts, grapes and melons grow in great ahundance. The Rogue River 

 Valley which is, in respect to soll and climate, like the famous Burgundy Valley 

 in France, is the place par excellenee for the growing of grapes which, under our 

 Prohibition law, will and are being used extensivley for our famous Oregon 

 grape juice. Grapes of as good quality as those grown in California, France 

 and Germany, for table use, are being produced in that valley. 



The great and beautiful Willamette Valley does and always did grow fine 

 fruits and is the oldest settled part of Oregon. Here flourish the apple, pear, 

 prune, cherry, peach, apricot. walnut. almond, chestnut, filbert, all small bush 

 fruits in great ahundance, especially the grape and the now famous loganberry. 

 All these fruits for size, color and flavor are not excelled anywhere, besides 

 having advantage of nearness to the large local markets of our eitles, as well 

 as cheaper railrpad and ocean transportation to the markets of the world. 



The beautiful and fertile little Valleys along the cost line are all more or less 

 adapted to fruitgrowing, especially the apples and cranberries. One progressive 

 experimenter has even now frnitincr acres of the tender olive and flg. A little 

 enterprise and energy will accomplish wonders in horticulture and viticulture 

 in Oregon. 



The French walnut. which I introduced into Orecon. is now Coming into its 

 own and has proven perfectly adapted to our soil and climatic conditions ; the 

 size and flavor of the kerneis are eoual to the best imported from Europe and is 

 more prolific even than there : this fruit alone will be in a very few years at 

 the head of all fruits grown in Oresron and is the best heritage a planter can 

 leave to bis family. 



Horticulture is no loneer an experiment in Oregon. The incessant drudgery, 

 the numerous and keen disappointments which are peculiar to all new enterprises, 

 and which horticulture in Oregon did not escape. are things of the past. We have 

 reached the era of scientific management of the orchard and of remunerative 



