The Apple in Oregon : Part I. 107 



THE APPLE IN OREGON. 



By Prof. E. R. Lake, Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station, Corvallis. Oregon. 



PART I. 



TopicK Discussed — Earli/ History — Earliest Varieties — Later I'iautings — TJie Prvh- 

 lem of Planting — Hitc as to Soil — Site as to Aspect — Selection, of Trees — 

 ]'lantin[!. 



This series contemplates four parts. I'arts IL III. and IV will deal with 

 cultivation, pruning, harvesting, packing, storing, marketing, and manufacturing 

 the inferior fruit into secondary products, and such other topics as naturally ac- 

 company the discussion. 



INTRODTTCTION. 



An apple orchard is sure to bear you several crops besides the npple. There 

 is the crop of sweet and tender reminiscences dating from childhood and spanning 

 the seasons from May to October, and making the orchard a sort of outlying part 

 of the household. You have played there as a child, mused there as a youth or 

 lover, strolled there is a thoughtful, sad-eyed man. Your father, perhaps, planted 

 the trees, or reared them from the seed, and you yourself have formed and grafted 

 them, and worked among them till every separate tree has a peculiar history and 

 meaning in your mind. Then there is the never-failing crop of birds — robins, 

 tinches, kingbirds, orioles, redbirds, starlings, and others. Such a crop I — tolDt 

 Burroughs. 



EARLY HISTORY. 



The history and development of apple culture in Oregon is unique The 

 story of the peculiar, almost romantic, conditions under wliich this fruit was 

 Introduced into the State by the pioneers ; the eagerness with which the first set- 

 tlers planted apple trees, and the fabulous prices for which the first fruit sold, 

 sounds today more like a tale of the days of chivalry than a sketch of times in 

 Oregon fifty years ago. Though the story has been told over and over, it will be 

 well worth reciting again in connection with this brief study of "the apple in 

 Oregon." 



In Iowa in the spring of LS47 Henderson Luelling planted a few score of 

 yearling grafted apple trees in boxes along with other small trees of plum. 

 cherry, pear, peach, and cuttings of grapes and bush fruits. In the early sum- 

 mer these boxes were lifted, placed in a wagon, and in due time — six months — 

 reached Oregon. Throughout the long and hazardous journey, made with ox team, 

 Mr. Luelling guarded with ever-increasing attachment these few hundred strug- 

 gling plants, destined to be the basis of a great fruit industry in the new west. 



The first orchard of grafted fruit in Oregon was planted that fall on a piece 

 of freshly cleared land near Milwaukie. Thus l)egan the orchard industry in Ore- 

 gon. These trees and plants, brought across the plains at a measureless cost, in 

 trials and hardships, to the owner, flourished in their new home ; and in the 

 years following returned "a dollar a drop for the sweat I lost in getting the nec- 

 essary water to keep them alive while we crossed the desert ; and their luscious 



