66 REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF HORTICULTURE. 



tious this season ; at least, the fruitmeu generally expected a 

 larger crop. At the same time, the prices obtained for the 

 fruit have been quite satisfactory to the growers, and they 

 seem to have no complaint to make on that score. The sug- 

 gestions w^hich I offered to fruitgrowers at our meeting in June, 

 that they load their fruit into the cars and sell the same out- 

 right to some fruitbuyer who is on the ground, thus being 

 relieved of the burden of assuming all risks incident to ship- 

 ping east on commission and upon their own responsibility, 

 I feel has been as seed sown in good ground. The majority 

 of the shippers in the vicinity of The Dalles disposed of their 

 fruit in this manner here this summer, obtaining good prices 

 for it. I certainly believe that that is the safest and best way 

 to handle large consignments of fruit, and will be the only 

 way in which fruit will be shipped in the future. Shippers 

 are becoming weary of taking chances on dealing directly with 

 the Eastern commission houses, paying freight bills, and, possi- 

 bly losing their fruit, etc., as has been the case in several 

 instances in the past. The best way, as I have advised, is 

 to dispose of the fruit to a buyer as soon as the car is loaded. 



I have found this season that the Italian prune trees are 

 badly affected with a peculiar kind of a blight, and I am as 

 yet unable to determine the real cause therefor. The blight 

 seems to have left its damaging traces upon the leaves of the 

 trees. In going through an orcliard I liave found here and 

 there a tree thus affected. The soil for the one tree being of a 

 different substance than that for the other, and all other con- 

 ditions being proportionally rational, some trees would be 

 perfectly sound while others were considerably damaged. I 

 noted this singular blight, some time ago, upon tomato 

 plants, where, in a hill containing two plants, one would be 

 badly affected with the blight, while the other appeared per- 

 fectly healthy and productive. It is a mystery to me to 

 determine to what source this leafy blight might be attributed. 



Another circumstance that gives us annoyance in the 

 eastern part of this district is the constant dying back, an- 

 nually, of many of the fruit trees, especially apple trees. 

 For the past ten years this has been noticed in orchards 

 planted on bunchgrass land, where the younger growth of 

 the trees have died back every year. A new- growth comes 

 up which dies back in the succeeding year. Some of the 

 trees fail to manifest anything of this nature until after they 

 are four or five years old. I am unable to ascertain the 



