Page 14 



BETTER FRUIT 



June igip 



BETTER FRUIT 



An Illustrated Magazine Devoted to the Interests 



of Modern Fruit Growing and Marlicting. 



Published Monthly 



by 



Better Fruit Publishing Company 



703 Oregonian Building 

 PORTLAND, OREGON 



Diversifying the Orchard Industry. 



With the practice of planting cover 

 crops in orchards, that are admitted by 

 experts to be beneficial, comes the 

 greater opportunity for the fruit grower 

 to diversify in fruit farming. The fact 

 that the orchard industry now looks so 

 promising should not cause those grow- 

 ers who took up the things that gave 

 them an added income during the un- 

 profitable years in growing fruit, if they 

 were taken up intelligently, to abandon 

 them. Growers who have not as yet 

 endeavored to diversify in the orchard 

 industry should study this question 

 closely. That is, they should study it 

 from the point of view where it will be 

 an aid to them rather than a hindrance. 

 They should know, for instance, before 

 they go into it that their fruit farm will 

 produce enough feed to maintain a cer- 

 tain amount of stock or poultry with- 

 out their having to buy any consider- 

 able quantity of feed. 



In an address made recently on this 

 subject Prof. E. J. Iddings of the Univer- 

 sity of Idaho said that there are four 

 reasons why the orchardist should be 

 able to find a use for live stock in con- 

 nection with his main business of fruit 

 production. In the first place the live 

 stock furnishes an additional source of 

 income and usually contributes directly 

 to the support of the family by furnish- 

 ing animal products for home consump- 

 tion. Second: Live stock may be made 

 to furnish a market for many of the 

 crops grown by the orchardist between 

 the rows of trees. Third: The orchard- 

 ist needs live stock for the purpose of 

 maintaining soil fertility, a question 

 that fruitmen are giving more and more 

 attention to and which has become a 

 very important one. The fourth reason 

 Professor Iddings gave is because of the 

 need of a greater production of food 

 animals to feed the world at large. 



With the successful experiments of 

 growing alfalfa and other legumes in 

 orchards it is possible to maintain the 

 dairy cow, and a hog or two naturally 

 fits in well with the keeping of dairy 

 cattle, the refuse milk providing the 

 best of foods. Chickens should also be 

 made a valuable adjunct to an orchard 

 as, apart from the food value and in- 

 come they supply, they are no small 

 factor in keeping down insect life. 



As has been said by those who have 

 studied orcharding carefully the great 

 fruit-growing industry of the North- 

 west will lose nothing of its importance 

 as a highly organized specialty by 

 diversification. In fact it will be 

 strengthened and rendered more stable 

 by the keeping of a limited quantity of 

 live stock to work in with the forage 

 crops produced in orchards and the un- 

 salable orchard products. 



Fruit Prices. 



The tendency of fjuit growers this 

 year, as reported from various districts 

 in the Northwest, will be to hold their 

 fruit for late sales. The strong demand 

 for Northwest apples and other fruits 

 that have already been received is given 

 as the cause for this course as well as 

 the fact that last year, although the 

 growers received a profitable figure for 

 their fruit by marketing it early, an un- 

 expected advancing market late in the 

 season allowed dealers to reap the 

 largest end of the profit. Of course the 

 grower wants to secure the largest re- 

 turn possible and, having this in mind, 

 it is natural that he will be influenced 

 to pursue a course that he thinks will 

 obtain this result. 



With reports from reliable sources to 

 the efi'ect that there is every prospect 

 for a large crop of fruit throughout the 

 country and that the conditions be- 

 tween the time of promise and actual 

 harvesting are ever varying, it will be 

 the part of wisdom to watch the mar- 

 keting situation keenly. With the gen- 

 eral tendency to hold up shipments 

 until the last moment there is always 

 the danger of flooding the market and 

 bringing about the opposite condition 

 from that desired. If prices justify it, 

 as now seems the case, it will probably 

 be better practice for the grower to per- 

 mit the movement of a moderate 

 amount of fruit early in the season. 

 Appreciating prices for almost every 

 commodity are causing the fruit grower 

 as well as the producer in other lines 

 of industry to indulge in a good deal of 

 speculation. Market conditions for all 

 food products are slightly unsettled 

 owing to the putting into operation of 

 the new government tax. During the 

 next few months these conditions will 

 become more adjusted and will allow 

 producers to form better judgment. 



Fruit growers should not be greatly 

 influenced by the statements of dealers. 

 On the other hand, they should not 

 expect the impossible in the way of 

 prices. 



Logging in a Cherry Orchard. 

 "Making the Large Cut in the Cherry 

 Tree," as Elihu Bowles, who has prac- 

 ticed this method in pruning in his 

 cherry orchard calls it, may not be 

 according to the best orchard practice, 

 but from Mr. Bowles' own story it has 

 undoubtedly proved successful. This 

 character of tree surgery which must 

 be looked upon as the last resort is not 

 the kind that recommends itself to the 

 watchful and skillful horticulturist. 

 The latter would have started to use 

 pruning remedies earlier in the life of 

 the tree that would have prevented the 

 later necessity for the "logging" meth- 

 ods which Mr. Bowles put into opera- 

 tion. In other words, he would have 

 kept the big wood under control by 

 pruning from year to year and not 

 made it necessary to eventually practice 

 mutilation to such an extent that the 

 trees were robbed of their greater bear- 

 ing qualities and symmetry, although 

 they were preserved sufficiently to con- 

 tinue to bear. 



The success that Mr. Bowles has at- 

 tained, however, with his older trees 

 will be useful to those who may have 

 trees that are in a similar condition, and 

 who will be able through learning of 

 these methods to preserve them as in- 

 come producers. As a new practice in 

 horticulture this method is both in- 

 structive and interesting and goes to 

 demonstrate the wonders that may be 

 produced at times by abandoning the 

 more scientific and beaten paths of hor- 

 ticulture. 



Editorial Notes. 

 The time for harvesting the cherry 

 will soon be with us and indications 

 are that the superior varieties of this 

 Northwestern fruit will be in heavier 

 demand at a higher figure than for sev- 

 eral years. The demand this year will 

 be expanded very largely over former 

 years by the canners, who are com- 

 peting strongly for cherries with the 

 fresh-fruit buyers at almost even prices. 



The Oregon nut-growing industry is 

 assuming important proportions. With 

 7,000 to 8,000 acres of English walnuts 

 and filberts coming into bearing soon 

 this branch of the state's horticulture 

 must now be given a place in the front 

 rank as a fruit-growing industry as 

 well as an income producer. The nut 

 growers of the state have recently 

 formed a strong organization which is 

 disseminating information that will pro- 

 duce the best results for nut growers. 



Like other news that has been com- 

 ing from German sources, it now ap- 

 pears that the statements that Germany 

 had gone into the orchard business on 

 a large scale during the war and had 

 also erected a large number of dehy- 

 drating plants in order to compete with 

 the rest of the world in the dried-fruit 

 business is a myth. From the reports 

 now received Germany will continue to 

 be a large buyer of American fruits, 

 provided the embargo is lifted. 



In some sections Northwest fruit was 

 seriously damaged by frost, but not 

 enough apparently to aff'ect the earlier 

 estimates of a very large output this 

 year. The damage was confined to tree 

 fruits. The output from bush and plant 

 fruits will be the largest in the history 

 of the Northwest, while the yield of 

 apples, pears and prunes will exceed 

 that of last year. 



More Storage for Wenatchee. 



With other districts in Washington, 

 Wenatchee is preparing this year for an 

 expansion in the fruit crop. Two new 

 warehouses, one at Cashmere and the 

 other at Dryden, are now being erected. 

 The Wenatchee Produce Company has 

 completed a new store and storage room 

 at 'VN'enatchee and the Cashmere Apple 

 Company has also added a new story to 

 their building in Wenatchee proper. It 

 is also reported that before next ship- 

 ping season Seattle dealers, who are 

 already interested in Wenatchee, will 

 have provided for considerably more 

 storage space. 



