98 REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF HORTICULTURE. 



* 



This is a decidedly plain statement of the conditions, and 

 we should not fail to grasp the situation. Lord Beaconsfield 

 said : " The great secret of success in life is to be ready when 

 the opportunity comes." 



FRUIT INSPECTION. 



In order to carry out the amended law regarding the sale 

 and shipment of diseased or infected fruits, I, as quarantine 

 officer of this port, informed all dealers in this city that the 

 law would be enforced, gave them copies of said law, and re- 

 quested them to notify their customers to that effect, in which 

 they co-operated heartily. Since the beginning of the ship- 

 ping season I have examined fruits arriving on Front Street 

 daily, and am pleased to state that I was forced to condemn 

 only one lot, consisting of twenty-four crates of Italian prunes 

 infected with San Jose scale. Owing to some fruits being 

 condemned at places in other states which our shippers con- 

 sidered unjust, I offered to examine fruits prior to shipment, 

 free of charge, and issue a certificate to that effect. Those 

 who have availed themselves of this offer report having had 

 no trouble since. 



FRUIT IN EASTERN OREGON. 



Compliant to numerous requests to visit the Eastern Ore- 

 gon fruit section, President H. B. Miller, Commissioner W. 

 K. Newell and myself made the journey and extended our in- 

 vestigations into tlie Snake River region, both Oregon and 

 Idaho sides. The primary I'eason for going as far as the 

 Boise Valley was to look into the economic aspect of horticul- 

 ture under entirely different soil and climatic conditions from 

 those prevailing in the Willamette Valley. 



The Snake River region, extending from Huntington to 

 Mountain Home, a distance of some one hundred and fifty 

 miles, belongs to the arid region, with a light soil, and here- 

 tofore was considered worthless, but under irrigation it has 

 blossomed out most wonderfully. Some seventeen thousand 

 acres have been planted in fruit of various kinds, and up to 

 now the trees have made good growth and produced good 

 crops. We have found that in this entire region the top soil is 

 underlaid with a strata of hardpan, impervious to water or 

 roots. This top soil varies from six inches to eiglit feet in 



