Report of Hon. J. H. Reid. 23 



REPORTS OF HON. J. H. REID, 



Cotnmissioncr for First District 



APRIL MEETING, 1907 



MiLWAUKiE, Oregon, March 30, 1907. 

 To the Honorahle State Board of Horticulture: 



All over the district there has been a great increase in the planting 

 of trees. Especially is this so in the case of apples. There has been 

 a remarkable planting of apple trees, in five to twenty-acre tracts. 

 More Spitzenburghs are being planted than any other variety, 

 although quite a number of Baldwins, Jonathans and Kings have 

 been set out. The outlook for the apple crop this year is better than 

 ever. Very few pears or peaches have been planted. There have 

 been a few large plantings of cherries. I would advise all those 

 who intend to set out cherry orchards to plant Eoyal Anns on hill 

 land; Lamberts in the valleys. The Lambert bears for us every 

 year; the Eoyal Ann bears a full crop only every second or third 

 year. Considerable interest is Ijeing displayed in the walnut industry 

 and several large plantings of forty or fifty-acre tracts have been 

 made. 



"Everybody sprays" is the slogan of the fruit grower now. As 

 you know, we won the "Sellwood case" at Oregon City, so now 

 we can all go right ahead and, without any fear of damage suits, 

 enforce the spraying laws to the limit, knowing that we have ample 

 authority to do so, and knowing that we have the decision of the 

 court to back us up. More than one-half of the trees in this district 

 have been sprayed already, quite a number of the old scaly orchards 

 have been grubbed out; and if the rest of them are not sprayed and 

 attended to right away, something will happen to them, too. 



There are some orchardists who do not as yet fully understand 

 the mixing and cooking of spray material. This often causes loss 

 of time and money, as sometimes the spray is made too weak — and 

 thus worthless, and sometimes it is made too strong and destroys 

 the fruit or foliage. To correct this T advise every orchard ist to 

 supply himself with a Baume acid spindle for heavy liquids. With 

 this he can test his spray material and be sure that it is of the 

 right strength before he puts it on the trees. The spray should 

 test 5| per cent on the scale w^hen ready for use. I recommend that 

 in our next spray bulletin we explain the use of this Baume test. 

 Last summer I sprayed a few pear trees with lime and sulphur 



