34 Report of State Board of Horticulture. 



REPORTS OF A. H. CARSON, 



Commissioner for Third District 



APRIL MEETING, 1907 * 



To the Honorable State Board of Horticulture: 



In the year 1883-4 the Oregon and California Eailway completed 

 the hnilding of its lines sonth of Roseberg through the Eogiie River 

 Valley south to Redding, California. This gave the Rogue River 

 Valley railway facilities north to Portland, Oregon, and south to 

 San Francisco. Prior to the completion of this railroad, now 

 known as a part of the Southern Pacific, the horticultural develop- 

 ment of the Rogue River Valley was of a primitive character. 

 Apples, pears, grapes and other fruits were growTi by the pioneer 

 settlers only for home use. The only orchards of any size in the 

 Rogue River Valley were the apple and pear orchards of E. K. 

 Anderson of Talent, in Jackson County, of about ten acres, and the 

 apple orchard of James Vanoy, four miles and a half west of 

 Grants Pass, in Josephine County, containing about eight acres. 

 There was no market for the apoles and pears grown in these two 

 orchards, and the surplus not required by the owners was freely 

 given away to pioneer neighbors who were without fruit. When 

 the railroad was completed, apple and pear buyers came into the 

 Rogue River Valley from California and bought the surplus fruit 

 from these two orchards, packing the apples and pears with their 

 expert Chinese packers, and shipped the same south and east as 

 California grown fruit. Oregon, or the Rogue River Valley, at that 

 time received no credit for her apples or pears in the Eastern 

 markets. Every box was shipped branded as California grown. It 

 is a fact well known here that the Anderson and Vanoy orchards 

 which were in their prime in 1883-4 — the time of the building of 

 the railroad — made both of these pioneers rich, as the demand 

 created by transportation possibilities created high prices for the 

 products of these two orchards. 



It is correct to say that the Anderson and Vanoy orchards were 

 the prime factors that started commercial apple and pear-growing 

 in the Rogue River Valley, which at the present time has reached 

 an acreage that E. K. Anderson and James Vanoy never dreamed 

 of when they planted their orchards in the early pioneer days of 

 the fifties. 



In Jackson County there are now of young and old apple and 

 pear orchards about 22,000 acres. The increased acreage the past 

 winter has been greater than ever before. From reliable data I 



