Growth of Fruit Industry. 79 



and orchards in the State which had become a public nuisance and a 

 great drag upon the development of the fruit-growing industry of the 

 State. Owing to the great planting of apple orchards in Oregon in 

 the gold-mining days when apple-growing was extremely profitable, and 

 the fact that for many years the production of apples in this State 

 was many times as great as was required to supply all markets which 

 could then be reached, the Willamette Valley contained a great acreage 

 of long-neglected and worthless orchards. In no other portion of the 

 State was there so much to be done in the way of getting neglected 

 orchards cleaned up or destroyed. The work has not been completed, 

 and the census figures of 1910 as to number of trees by counties are 

 not yet at hand, but it is probable that at least one-half of all thie 

 trees which went out of existence for the benefit of their owners and 

 the public generally in the last decade were in the Willamette Valley. 

 The beneficial effects of their destruction are plainly seen in the 

 remarkable growth of production of tree fruits in the last decade, as 

 shown by the census reports giving the aggregate yield in busheis of 

 apples, plums and prunes, pears, peaches and cherries in the counties 

 which lie in the Willamette Valley for the crop years of 1899 and 1909: 



Busheis Busheis Percent 



1899 1909 increase 



Clackamas 50,132 331,411 565 



Marion 65,887 674,598 923 



Linn 60,285 193,887 221 



Lane 63,851 196,051 206 



Benton 35,853 111,257 210 



Polk 33,682 237,932 666 



Yamhill 114,319 521,932 356 



Washington 57,538 249,349 333 



Totais 481,546 2,516,417 422 



This shows that the percentage of increase of production of tree 

 fruits in the Willamette Valley for the decade was more than double 

 that of the State as a whole. A large share of this great increase in 

 the Willamette Valley was due to prunes. The prune orchards were 

 yet young in 1900 and most of them had not then come into füll bearing. 

 With apples it was different. There were almost no young apple 

 orchards in the valley in 1900. The yield of apples had been decreasing 

 for nearly twenty years and in 1899 the yield for the whole Valley 

 was only 310,000 busheis from more than 1,500,000 trees. There was 

 at that time a general feeling of discouragement and hopelessness about 

 the apple industry in the Willamette Valley. With the destruction of 

 a great share of the worthless trees and better care of what were left 

 apple production made an excellent start upwards again during the 

 decade as shown by the following table giving the yields of apples for 

 the valley counties for 1899 and 1909 : 



Apples Apples 



County— Busheis 1899 Busheis 1909 



Clackamas 26,369 144,329 



Marion 33,815 153,183 



Linn 48,461 95,993 



Lane 46,428 98,157 



Benton 32,381 54.748 



Polk 27,224 70,408 



Washington 38,300 92,843 



Yamhill 57,739 89,292 



Total 310,717 798,95 



o 



