i()i6 



BETTER FRUIT 



Page 7 



Thousands of acres of farm land suit- 

 able only for general farming have 

 been set to fruit trees, with the result 

 that rosette, root-rot, collar-rot, blight 

 and many other diseases have destroyed 

 and will destroy these trees. If you 

 own orchards in such a location the 

 best thing to do is to quit trying to 

 grow fruit and grow something that 

 will pay. No doubt you have paid a 

 fruit land price for land suitable for 

 growing hay, but charge this to experi- 

 ence. Fortunately nature has been very 

 kind to the fruit grower in the North- 

 west in that no matter how he seemed 

 to care for his orchard, yet he was able 

 to reap quite a benefit from it. But that 

 time has passed. Fruit tree diseases, 

 insects and pests of various descriptions 

 are now ciuite prevalent and the grower 

 is keijt busy from the beginning to the 

 end of the season fighting them. It is 

 absolutely necessary, in order for you 

 to be a successful grower, to get right 

 down to hard work and keep after it 

 the whole year round. It is most neces- 

 sary to give your time and attention to 

 any and all of the various phases of 

 fruit growing. Too many of us do too 

 much of our orchard work by proxy, 

 leaving the other fellow to do the work 

 and then expect results. Nine chances 

 out of ten we do not get them, and then 

 we condemn the business, when as a 

 matter of fact there is no one to blame 

 but ourselves. 



If you are not willing to go up 

 against hard work stay out of the game. 

 Do not maintain an orchard that is of 

 no value to you and is a menace to the 

 man who is growing good fruit. There 

 are too many of them now. Every time 

 you fail to spray or cut out blight 

 lessens your chances of success and 

 also that of your neighbor. 



We will take the season just past. 

 The complaint has been that there 

 never have been so many worms and 

 scale. True, we must admit that the 

 season has been very favorable for 

 them. But how many growers started 

 out last spring with a determination to 

 win at all hazards. I will guarantee 

 that today that grower has no complaint 

 on the net profits on his crop. Too 

 many of us have been caught napping. 

 Asleep at the switch. Start out at the 

 beginning of the season with the idea 

 that your orchard will bring you a 

 million and that if you do not get in and 

 work you cannot get it. 



Along with my fruit growing I do 

 some buying, and in canvassing a great 

 many orchards in my locality I was 

 struck with the evident lack of care so 

 many of them had had. Very little 

 pruning, poor spraying, no thinning. 

 1 lay this condition to several causes. 

 One is that growers did not have enough 

 money to give the orchard the care it 

 should have had. Another, the growers 

 had lost heart, and consequently hail 

 neglected to do things that they should 

 have done, with the result that they are 

 no better off than they were last year, 

 when there was such an immense crop 

 and no price. 



Today go to your county and state 

 fairs and look at the dis])lays. Do you 

 see a preponderance of fruit exhibits? 



No. The exhibits run largely to live- 

 stock. Why? Because that business is 

 more in the limelight for the reason 

 that it appears to be paying better. But 

 is that any i-eason for the fruit grower 

 stampeding to that line of faj'ming, giv- 

 ing up what he has learned by costly 

 experience? Leaving the one at low 

 tide and going into the other at high 

 tide will never get him anywhere. If 

 your location is right, stay with it. 

 Some day the fruit will be back in its 

 own and the other may be down. In 

 189(5 a very large apple crop was pro- 

 duced, with the usual lesult — thousands 

 of barrels went to waste; but in the 

 course of a few years there was not 

 such an overproduction, but rather the 

 very reverse. What was the result? 

 The man who stayed by his orchard, 

 carefully tending it through the poor 

 years, was in a position to take advan- 

 tage of the better prices when they 

 came. That time is going to come again 

 in the apple game and it may not be so 

 very far ahead. Better have your lamp 

 trinnned and burning by having your 

 orchard trinnned and sprayed. 



In the management of all business 

 there nnist be the greatest possible 

 elimination of waste. How much do we 

 as growers follow this idea? Do we 

 clean cultivate our orchards year after 

 year, destroying the hunurs in the soil 

 without putting something back, thus 

 starving our trees until we produce 

 small, unsalable apples? Or are we 

 seeding them to a cover crop, thereby 

 putting hunms and life into the soil, 

 building it up, and thus giving the trees 

 health and vigor? Hunuis is the yeast 

 of the soil. Without it the soil is dead, 

 of not much more value than so many 

 ashes. 



How many of us produce on our 

 ranches as nearly as possible all the 

 things that we eat, by keeping a cow or 

 two, a few hogs, chickens, and main- 

 taining a garden? Not too many of us. 

 We should have all of these and should 

 raise a cro|) of alfalfa to feed them. 

 Besides, all of us have more or less 

 waste in cull fruits. As there seems to 

 be not nnich profit in a by-product, let 

 us make a by-product of the hog. By 

 feeding him this waste, together with 

 gieen alfalfa and affalfa hay, and pur- 

 chasing a small amount of grain to go 

 along with it, a pretty fair (piality of 

 pork can be produced at a ))rofit. It 

 beats 25 cents a pound for bacon. An- 

 other item: Hogs running at large'in 

 an orchard cannot be beaten as a means 

 of fertilizing year by year. Year by 

 year the population of this country in- 

 creases and the demands upon our soil 

 become heavier and the exports of 

 foodstuffs become smaller. Our farms 

 are becoming more and more sub- 

 divided, thus re(|uiring more ])rofils to 

 the acre, as there ;u'e more individuals 

 to su|)port. With this idea in view, is 

 it not ver>' necessary that we keej) our 

 soil in prime condition? In talking with 

 a fruit grower from Connecticut 1 was 

 informed that the cost of preparing the 

 land in order that alfalfa may grow on 

 it is %lv) per acre. Think of that. Here 

 in the Northwest all that is needful is 

 to purchase the seed, sow it, water it, 



and lo! we have a crop. Do we want 

 our soils to get in such a condition that 

 it will cost a snudl fortune to put them 

 back to what they should be? 



There w'as an extensive complaint the 

 past season because of sunburnt fruit. 

 Have you noticed that this happened 

 largely in cultivated orchards, especi- 

 ally on light colored soils? The sun 

 beating down on the ground and re- 

 flecting back up made heat strong 

 enough to scorch the apples. However, 

 this was not the only reason for sun- 

 burnt fruit. Trees that have been neg- 

 lected by lack of pruning produced long 

 willowy growths, and, overloaded as 

 they were this season, lopped over the 

 ground, exposing the fruit to the glare 

 of the sun, with the result that the 

 apples were ruined for market. Sys- 

 tematic pruning and thinning would 

 have helped immensely. 



We hear a great deal about the dis- 

 honest commission men. There are 

 such men, and the manner in which the 

 conunission business is carried on gives 

 them the opportunity. But what about 

 the grower? Is he always honest? Not 

 by any means. How many times will 

 he bring in the fruit, the red apples on 

 the top but not on the bottom of the 

 box. It is a pleasure to do business 

 with a grower who can be trusted. 

 When he tells you that he has a box of 

 Extra Fancy you may depend upon it 

 that the apples are of that grade, and 

 you pay him from 10 to 25 cents more 

 per box than the man wdiom you must 

 watch. The man who puts up his fruit 

 riglit and sells it as represented is most 

 likely the man who is growing his fruit 

 right, and, as a whole, is a success in 

 his line. Would that there were more 

 of these people. 



Right here is where I wish to criticize 

 our laws made to regulate our business 

 of raising fruit. Last winter at Olym- 

 pia a great deal of time, energy and 

 money was spent in getting a bill 

 through that would protect the grower 

 who would produce good, clean fruit. 

 The Legislature i)assed the present hor- 

 ticultural bill. The honest grower was 

 delighted, because he thought he would 

 have ample i)rotection against the man 

 who grows worms aiul scale instead of 

 ajjples. But has he had protection? No. 

 Hundreds of cars of infected fruit have 

 been shipped out of the slate, helping to 

 lower the price on the good. It is poor 

 satisfaction to have spent long, tedious 

 hours spraying, endeavoring to live u|) 

 lo the law as interpreted b\ our inspec- 

 tors, and when the crop is ready to de- 

 liver find that liis neighbor who did not 

 spra\ is able lo sell his cro|), bugs and 

 all, and possibly sooner than the man 

 who i)uts his up right. Oui' horticul- 

 tural commissioner tells us that if is 

 only for this season, because of the 

 s(arcil> of apples; but what about next 

 >ear? Can the insi)ectors put up the 

 l)ars next year after having let them 

 down this year? I don't see how they 

 can. 'Ihe man who spra\ed his croii 

 this season because he thought he must 

 will not be very nuich inclined to do so 

 next season, after he has found that his 

 careless neighl)or who did not spray 

 has been able lo dispose of his junk this 



