Appendix. 133 



that any one ever made anything shipping peach-plums East, and I 

 <lo know there were many losses, and the business was abandoned. 



Early in the seventies I built the Acme fruit evaporator, bought a 

 Lily pitter, which pitted three thousand five hundred pounds in ten 

 hours, and, after the failure of my shipping scheme, dried the entii'e 

 product of my orchard. For some years, starting at 16 cents per pound, 

 the business paid nicely, then prices dropped to 14, 12, 10, and down, 

 \mtil 1890 they were a drug in the market at 6 cents, unsalable, and 

 were held over, some for three years, and were then reprocessed and 

 sold at a loss. The fashion had changed, the fad was off, people were 

 tired of pitted plums, the trade turned to prunes, the call now was for 

 prunes with the pit in, as it was claimed to give the true prune taste, 

 which the pit alone could do. This was disastrous. What should I do 

 Avith my plum orchard? Here was a condition serious. I was theoriz- 

 ing: "Was it possible to graft new heads on these ti-ees successfully?" 

 This was questioned; orchai'dists shook their heads and thought it too 

 big an undertaking. Some advised digging up the trees to set prunes. 

 I was selling prunes at 12^/^ cents per pound in fifty-pound boxes, faced. 

 Our Italian prunes led the market, and were readily salable at that 

 figure. This was paying fairly well; a legitimate business, so to speak. 

 We were then possessed of the idea that we had a little neck of the 

 "woods in Western Oregon and Washington — the only spot in this great 

 continent that could grow successfully the Italian prune. We were led 

 to think this as they had failed in California, the East, and other local- 

 ities, and, presumably, they required a heavy clay soil, and a cool, damp 

 climate, and we didn't know of any other such counti-y, and we were 

 growing them successfully, and we had the verdict of the markets and 

 -all comers to that effect. 



In 1871 I secured an experienced top-grafter, started in April and 

 grafted twelve hundred twenty-year-old peach-plums into the Italian 

 prune, putting ten to thirty grafts in a tree. It looked destructive. 

 Orchardists looked wise and said it was an experiment; some thought it 

 Avould not succeed. I had tried a few trees the year before with my 

 own hands, and was hopeful. It did succeed. Fully 95 per cent of the 

 grafts grew; enough so that no further grafting was necessary, while 

 some trimming out was necessary. I did not lose a tree — this at a 

 cost of 10 cents a tree. I trimmed back the new wood annually, and 

 in three years had a good bearing top, which thereafter bore the 

 largest, finest prunes grown in the vicinity. These I wrapped, packed 

 in twenty-pound boxes, and shipped East. They carried well and gave 

 very satisfactory returns. I shipped seven cars one season. They 

 averaged me $1.25 per box in the Eastern market, leaving a nice profit. 

 Continuously every year after this gratifying result I thus worked over 

 about one thousand trees, until forty-four hundi'ed plum trees were all 

 worked over into Italian prunes, with like success and with a loss not 

 exceeding fifty trees. It was said and believed by many that the union 

 ■would not be good at the graft, and trees thus treated would break 



