68 REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF HORTICULTURE. 



Under such an assignment, I am sure each man would find 

 sufficient work to keep his time occupied. In Eastern Ore- 

 gon, especially, a competent fruit specialist would have his 

 hands full for a while, analyzing some of the soils in which 

 our orchards are grown. Some carelessness is clearly appar- 

 ent in the eastern part of my district, where many trees are 

 suffering because of having been set out in soils by no means 

 adapted to the growing of fruit — and a specialist, if he were 

 in the field now, might be directly instrumental, by an analy- 

 sis of the soils, etc., in remedying all such mistakes. Thus, 

 in the course of a few years, the fruit sections east of here 

 would be prosj)erous and thriving, where they are now so 

 wofully scant and unprofitable. 



EMILE SCHANNO, 

 Commissioner Fourth District. 



SECOND SEMI-ANNUAL REPORT. 



The Dalles, Oregon, April 9, 1900. 



To the President and Members of the State Board of Horticulture — 



Gentlemen : The following is a statement of my work and 

 observations for the last six mouths : 



I find the prospect for a good fruit crop in my district the 

 best that I have ever seen for this time of the year, and most 

 especially the peaches and cherries ; and, if we do not have any 

 frost later on, this class of trees will have to be thinned out, 

 or else by reason of the heavy bearing this fruit will be very 

 small and hardly fit for market. The danger of frost, how- 

 ever, is veiy remote, as there is very little snow along the 

 foothills and the mountains to cool off the air and thereby 

 cause frost. 



The fruitgrowers in my district have already been spraying 

 this winter and spring, as the weather has been very mild 

 and warm and particularly favorable for this kind of work. 

 The fruitgrowers are taking better care of their orchards than 

 in former years, as they have begun to realize that it pays to 

 take the best care of their fruit trees, and especially so when 

 apples are worth from $1.50 to $1.75 per box. As an evidence 

 of this fact, I now find spi-aying pumps and spraying apparatus 

 wherever I go, when but a few years ago it was a very rare 

 thing to see a spray-pump in an orchard. 



There are several fruitgrowers in my district who are mak- 



