Appendix. 185 



but some prefer to hire a good hand to shake their trees slightly, keep- 

 ing ahead of the pickers each time over the orchard and cleaning the 

 trees the final picking. 



Before being spread on the trays, the fruit is dipped in boiling water, 

 to which a little lye has been added, just enough lye to check the skin 

 of the prune. It is then rinced in clean water to remove the lye. From 

 thirty to forty-five hours are required to cure the fruit, depending some- 

 what upon the kind of dryer and also upon the amount of lye used in 

 dipping the green fruit. A few growers have discarded the use of lye 

 altogether, believing the extra expense in drying will be made good in 

 added weight of the cured product, and that in time prunes not dipped 

 in lye will fetch a premium. 



Many operators of dryers haul the cured fruit away to the packing 

 house immediately after taking it from the trays. This is a great 

 mistake. The fruit should first be thrown into bins and allowed to pass 

 through the sweat before being weighed or graded. Why give away all 

 the profits to the packers? They have the processing and fixed price 

 per pound for packing. However, when we consider — and stop to appre- 

 ciate — the benefits that have accrued to the business since the building 

 of local packing houses, we will not be hasty in beginning to "knock" 

 the packers. They have very largely remedied the deplorable conditions 

 that prevailed in 1898, when the fruit was shipped in bags. They have 

 done practically all that has been done to advertise the "Oregon" prune, 

 and gain for it a place distinctively its own in the markets of both our 

 own country and Europe. 



Many growers of prunes are beginning to see that it may be necessary 

 for growers themselves to become packers of their own product, and 

 in other ways associate themselves for the promotion of the general 

 interests of their line of business. And to this end, prune growers' 

 ■unions are being agitated in some localities. There is every reason to 

 believe that unions of priine growers will result in as much benefit 

 to the producers of cured prunes as have such organizations to mohair 

 growers and apple men. 



THE EUROPEAN GRAPE IN OREGON. 



By E. A. Reuter, Forest Grove, Oregon. 



Contrary to general expectation, Oregon, the land of rain, is capable 

 of producing some of the choicest vines. 



The vine or European grapes are successfully grown in the Rogue 

 Valley and on the hills surrounding Forest Grove. At the former place 

 Muscat and Tokay thrive well, while at the latter they can not be 

 depended upon. The varieties best adapted to this section are Sweet- 

 water and Black Hamburg — both are suitable for table or wine. Per- 



