Report of A. H. Carson. 41 



mistakes in buying land that is not adapted to the fruit they 

 desire to grow. They believe (and this belief is encouraged 

 by unscrupulous land dealers) that to own land in fee, plant 

 it to apples and pears, means they have built a foundation 

 for an income for life. Where land is well adapted to the 

 growth and maturity of these fruits this is true, providing the 

 grower bestows intelligent labor, and plenty of it. Any and 

 all men who have for a number of years been growing fruit 

 here with success, making money — big money, for the capital 

 invested — owe their success to their willingness to do the hard 

 work that must be done to make an orchard a paying Invest- 

 ment. There are no details in the management of their 

 orchard that are neglected. Cultivation, spraying, pruning, 

 thinning the fruit at the proper time, carefully gathering it, 

 and properly packing it for market are attended to, hence 

 their success. To be a successful fruit grower is "not a 

 picnic." 



New people Coming here from the east have as a usual thing 

 not considered climatic conditions as they are on this coast. 

 They take the tables giving our annual rainfall and compare 

 it with the same in the state where they came from, and find 

 it the same, or nearly so. The greater rainfall in the east is 

 had during the growing season of crops, while here the greater 

 part of our annual rainfall occurs during the winter months 

 and early spring, and but a very light rainfall occurs during 

 June, July, August, and September, when crops of all kinds 

 grow and mature. For the want of rain here during the grow- 

 ing period but few weeds grow on some of our best fruit lands, 

 and from that fact many neglect to cultivate their orchards 

 to conserve the moisture that goes into our soils from the 

 winter rains. These dry soils without cultivation soon lose the 

 moisture by capillary attraction. Under a hot sun during 

 the dry period here capillary tubes form, and the action of 

 the sun's rays pumps the moisture from the soll that should 

 be conserved and retained for the growth of the orchard. 

 During the dry season there are but few soils in this section 

 but should have the top surface fined and worked into a dust 

 for a mulch to conserve moisture. After the top soil is worked 

 into a fine dust, capillary tubes will soon form under a hot 

 sun, and where an orchard is maturing a large crop of fruit 

 or a young orchard is to be kept thrifty and growing, this top 

 dust mulch should be stirred once a week in Southern Oregon 

 with a harrow or spring-tooth until September first to firm 

 the soil and cut off these capillary tubes. 



MISTAKES OF NEW ORCHARD PLANTERS. 



In many new orchards the past year I have noted that the 

 owners were growing between the rows of young trees wheat 



