172 REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF HORTICULTURE. 



''There has been to my knowledge more or less complaint in regard to 

 packing and assorting of American dried fruits. I never have investigated 

 a case of this kind in which the complaint did not prove to be fully sus- 

 tained. I examined yesterday the first box of dried apricots from this sea- 

 son's crop, which just arrived from one of the foremost packing firms of 

 California, a house whose brand on the packing case usually is accepted as a 

 guarantee of quality. On removing the lid the fruit appeared in neatly- 

 arranged layers, the pieces large, firm, and uniform size and color: the dried 

 fiesh as translucent as gelatine, and of fine aromatic flavor. 



"The box being- turned over and the bottom removed, a wholly different 

 picture was revealed. There the fruit had been loosely thrown in in pieces 

 of all sizes, mainly small, irregular in shape, and of all shades of color, from 

 the golden brown to deep mahogany, many pieces showing by their form that 

 they had been saved from apricots which had been partially decayed. All 

 these were good enough to be eaten, but were not what the buyer ordered 

 and paid for, nor what the seller pretended to sell, and, as the disappointed 

 importer somewhat bitterly remarked, 'If this is what we get from a first- 

 class exporter, who puts up his own fruit, what may we expect from jobbers 

 who gather up and export the miscellaneous products of small packers and 

 individual farmers':" " 



This covei's the case completely, and what is true of the apricots is also 

 true of the prunes. If we wish to capture these foreign markets then our 

 fruit must be honestly graded, honestly packed, and honestly labeled. To 

 do otherwise is commercial suicide. 



EAELY HOETICULTUEE IN OREGON. 



By .John Minto, Salem. 



As potatoes and peas were the first things planted, one year in advance of 

 the seed of wheat, oats, barley, and maize, received from Hudson's Bay, it 

 is safe to assume that the cultivation of vegetables received attention prior 

 to or simultaneously with that of grain for breadstuffs by settlers as well as 

 at Fort Vancouver, and as the garden precedes the field, in natural order, 

 we have reason to believe that the most intelligent Canadian trappers, like 

 Gervais and Luceir, began in the same order. We have this evidence that 

 the garden preceded the field in their case, as it was most suitable as a 

 means of experiment with one quart of wheat which Doctor McLoughlin 

 gave Mr. Luceir to begin with. In the case of Mr. Gervais, we have the 

 testimony of Daniel Lee's letter, that the garden was the most notable por- 

 tion of his improvements ; as, to do the arrival of the missionaries, in 1834, 

 special honor as his guests, he stretched a tent and placed beds, and they 

 " slept in a garden of cucumbers and melons." 



