352 ANNUAL REPORT OP THE Off. Doc. 



individual orchaids; the most skillful and business-like-methods of 

 marketing the fruit, thus making a reputation whidi is an actual 

 cash asset; the united efforts of all parties interested including 

 fruit growers, commercial clubs or other business organizations, 

 railroads and other agencies, not the least of which has been the 

 real estate agent in everlastingly booming and advertising Ihe par- 

 ticular sections in which they were interested — and then keei)ing 

 forever at it. By these methods any good locality for the produc- 

 tion of fruit may make a reputation which will be known wherever 

 fruit is eaten. In some cases, however, so much noise about a locality 

 or region has been unfortunate for it has been overdone. 



Many of these western sections to which I refer and which are 

 now known the country over, would be entirely unknown — some of 

 them not even on the map — were it not for the application of just 

 these methods I have named. 



In the Grand Valley of Colorado there are relatively' very few 

 orchards of ten acres in extent; in the Hood Kiver section of Ore- 

 gon the same thing is true and it is freely admitted in that section 

 that their success has come from the intensive management of small 

 orchards — to which should be added, and it is no small factor, 

 co-operative methods of marketing their fruit. But the size of an 

 orchard, it should be added, ought to be measured by the size of 

 the man back of it, not by a surveyor's chain. 



Now to touch upon more concrete matters, there are one or two 

 things I went to say about orchard locations, for there are many 

 orchards throughout the country that can never be made success- 

 ful because their location is so faulty. Not infrequently orchards 

 are planted on a site that looks well but if the subsoil is examined 

 a solid ledge of rock will be found perhaps three or four feet below 

 the surface. Where this condition occurs an orchard is an impossi- 

 bility under most conditions. 



A more serious matter, however, because it is more common, is 

 a location that is faulty from the standpoint of atmospheric drain- 

 age. The importance of a location having good air drainage has 

 been made very emphatic in almost countless instances during the 

 past few years. You know how cold air will settle to the lower 

 frost in low places and none at all in elevated places. This simply 

 means that the cold air which is heavier than warm air has settled 

 to the low places crowding the warmer air up to a higher stratum. 

 The result is the killing frost observed on low ground and the ab- 

 sence of it on high ground. 



Practical demonstrations of the bearing which this has on suc- 

 cessful fruit growing have been many times repeated during the 

 past few years in the good crop of fruit on high ground and in the 

 same localities their destruction by late spring frosts. 



But I want to discuss very briefly some of the fundamental opera- 

 tions that make up "orchard management." We think of orchard 

 management as consisting of cultivation, fertilizing, pruning, spray- 

 ing, etc., and perhaps we may come to add heating or smudging 

 and other corresponding operations. But orchard management i§ 

 really more than these things so far as results go for in the handling 

 of every orchard there goes into it the individuality of the grower 

 or manager — the "personal equation" and that is a most important 



