40 Report of State Board of Horticulture. 



OCTOBER MEETING, 1808 



To the Honorable State Board of Horticulture: 



I herewith respectfully submit my report as commissioner of the 

 Third District for the biennial year ending September 30, 1908. 



This district embraces the counties . of Coos, Curry, Douglas, 

 Josephine, Jackson, Klamath and Lake, all southern counties of 

 the State of Oregon. Three of the southwest counties of the district 

 — Coos, Curry and Douglas — are bounded on the west by the Pacific 

 Ocean. A portion of Douglas County and all of Josephine and 

 Jackson Counties lie between the Coast Eange on the west and 

 the Cascade Eange on the east. Klamath and Lake Counties are 

 east of the Cascade Eange, bounded on the south by California 

 and on the east by Harney County. The seven counties of the 

 Third District aggregate an area of 26,000 square miles, equalling 

 in area several of the states on the Atlantic Coast. This subdivision 

 of the State, with the addition of Harney and Malheur Counties, 

 is called Southern Oregon. 



The topography of this subdivision of the state, with its moun- 

 tains, foothills and valleys, is such that there are varied climatic 

 conditions, as well as soils existing, and one section of Southern 

 Oregon may be adapted to the growth and maturity of a variety 

 of fruit that in some other section of the district would be a failure, 

 and yet all parts of the section known as Southern Oregon are 

 adapted, by reason of soil and prevailing climatic conditions, to 

 some special commercial fruit growing. 



These varied conditions of climatic and soil conditions of the 

 Pacific Coast States are little understood by the average Eastern 

 man who comes here to make a home. The Eastern man compares 

 .the annual rainfall of the Atlantic States with the annual rainfall 

 of the Pacific States and finds the average nearly the same, for- 

 getting that the annual rainfall of the East occurs in the spring 

 and summer months, during the growth of crops, while on the 

 Pacific Coast the annual rainfall occurs during our winter and 

 early spring months, when our crops are being planted, and the 

 Eastern man also assumes our annual rainfall is the same all over 

 the State. The distribution of the annual rainfall in the seven 

 counties of the Third District varies greatly during the year. The 

 mountain ranges running north and south, the Coast and Cascade 

 Ranges, are the physical factors in the annual distribution of the 

 amount of precipitation each county of the district gets yearly. 

 All moisture that is precipitated over the Pacific Coast Stateg 

 comes from the Pacific Ocean. A south or southwest wind drives 

 the evaporation from the ocean over the land, and a continuation 

 of a southwest wind for two or three days during the winter and 

 spring months always brings rain. During the rainy period, the 



