REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF HORTICULTURE. 43 



scions should always be taken from bearing trees, and not 

 only that, but taken from the very best type of bearing tree 

 of the variety desired that can be found. As everyone knows, 

 tliere are always certain trees in an orchard that bear more 

 regular and bear finer fruit than the others. These are the 

 trees that should be chosen to propagate from. Thus the 

 trees oan be brought into bearing much earlier and the 

 quality of the fruit steadily improved. Careful experiments 

 have demonstrated that trees budded from trees that in their 

 turn were properly budded, came into bearing two or three 

 years earlier than ones just budded from stock in the nursery 

 row ; in fact the latter sometimes never come into profitable 

 bearing. Trees can be improved by careful breeding just as 

 readily and easily as breeds of stock, and th-e necessity for 

 doing it is just as great. Our present standard varieties can 

 and should be bred up until they are all a fruitman could 

 ask. Here is work for the nurseryman that will pay better 

 than endless chasing after new varieties, ninety-nine out of 

 every one hundred of which are a delusion and a snare, a 

 fact which every orchardist knows from experience. The 

 importance of this subject is not half realized. Think what 

 it would mean if every tree that is planted would come into 

 bearing at three or four years of age, instead of six or eight 

 as commonl}" now. Every purchaser of trees should make 

 this one of the first points in his selection of trees, buy only 

 from a nurseryman that you know uses this care in the selec- 

 tion of his breeding stock. Such stock will no doubt command 

 a higher price, but that is a small matter, for the original 

 cost of the tree is only a small item in the cost of growing an 

 orchard. 



Throughout my district probably twenty-five per cent, of 

 the land that is capable of tillage at all is pre-eminently 

 adapted to fruit culture ; yet one finds a great many orchards 

 in soil that is totally unfit. As a general rule, soil that is, 

 or has been, occupied by the fir or oak trees, or hazel bushes, 

 is suitable for fruit trees ; but, almost Avithout exception, 

 every acre of such land should be underdrained to secure the 

 best results, no matter whether it is on the highest hill or in 

 the deepest valley. Most of the land of Western Oregon has 

 a clay subsoil, and all such land needs tiling. Fruit trees will 

 never thrive with wet feet. The only land naturally thor- 

 oughly drained is a gravelly soil, or one where the subsoil of 

 gravel comes within two or three feet of the surface. So that 



