Page 8 



lall. The only relief seems to lie in the 

 (liiection of legislation by those states 

 into which we are able to ship culls 

 restricting the sale of same. I do not 

 wish this to be construed to mean that 

 I am condemning our inspectors, but I 

 believe that a serious mistake has been 

 made. Our inspectors as a whole are a 

 conscientious, hard working lot of men, 

 and growers should be in closer touch 

 with them. 



Another |)oint I wish to make: The 

 average grower, after he has produced 

 a crop does not know what value to put 

 upon it. He probabh- figures that he 

 has paid so many hundred tlollars per 

 acre for his land, that it has cost him so 

 many cents per box to prune, spray, 

 harvest, pack and deliver, and so many 

 cents for profit. This is perhaps as far 

 as he has tigured out what the price of 

 a box of apples ought to be, or what he 

 thinks it ought to be. He is very likely 

 ignorant as to how many apples there 

 are in other districts, or as to the con- 

 dition of the crop in other states, which 

 is information he should have in order 

 that he may make his own deductions. 

 It would seem that a man who produces 

 an article ought to know something of 

 what he might expect to get for that 

 article when he puts it on the market. 

 But many of us expect to get that much 

 because the real estate man told us that 

 we could get that much, at the time we 

 bought our land, for we grow the only 

 big ajjples. We should remembed that 

 the whole Northwest produces only a 

 small percentage of the entire crop of 

 the country. The average business man 

 of the city meets other business men on 

 the car going to his oflice, at luncheon, 

 at clubs and in numerous other ways. 

 Here they discuss business and each is 

 benefited by the oeher's experience. It 

 is not so with the farmer. He gets out 

 early in the morning, goes to work in 

 the fields, at noon he comes into the 

 house and eats his dinner, and then re- 

 turns to work. At night he conies in 

 tired after his day's work and is soon 

 off to bed. This may happen day in 

 and day out. He stays so close to his 

 duties that he loses touch with the 

 world. Consequently he does not know 

 what the other fellow is doing. Right 

 here at this meeting there shoukl be 

 more growers to find out what the 

 other fellow is doing. It would be far 

 better for all of us to occasionalh' take 

 a trip to the large centers in order that 

 we may see how our produce is han- 

 dled. It is a poor observer that would 



BETTER FRUIT 



not get his money back from such a 

 trip. 



We are told that as growers we need 

 onh know how to ])roduce a crop and 

 that it is not necessary for us to know 

 anything about the selling end of it. 

 Such advice is a good thing for the man 

 who wants to lie paid for his services 

 in handling our crops. Watch the other 

 fellow. If he is prockuing his crop at 

 a less cost than you, get next to him and 

 find out how he does it. Then go him 

 one better if you can. 



Although the fruit business is a very 

 hazartlous game, not only in the grow- 

 ing, but also in the handling, it is a very 



November 



interesting one. Let us all jnit oiu- 

 shoulders to the wheel. Let us put 

 more energy and care into our pruning, 

 spraying, thinning and packing. Let us 

 bring our fruit u]) to the highest stan- 

 ilard possible, making file box apple of 

 the Northwest so superior to the barrel 

 apple of the East that the freight rate 

 will be no handicap to us. Success will 

 be oui's and the dreams of a few years 

 back will become a reality. 



[Note — The Washington Slate Horti- 

 cultural Society will hold its annual 

 meeting in North Yakima in Decem- 

 ber.] 



California Walnut Grove Soil Management 



By Dr. L. D. Batchelor, University of 

 Riverside, 



A REVIEW of the methods employed 

 by some of the most successful 

 Califmnia walnut growers may be of 

 interest to the readers of "Better Fruit." 

 Clean culture is practiced in the great 

 majority of the walnut sections of this 

 state. The maintenance of sulhcient 

 soil moisture is an important factor and 

 clean cultivation is one of the chief 

 means of promoting this conservation 

 \n increasing proportion of the grow- 

 ers are using winter cover crops as a 

 means of keeping up the humus of the 

 soil and adding nitrogen through the 

 leguminous crops. Melilotus indica, 

 held peas and vetch are among the lead- 

 ing crops used for this purpose. By 

 seeding just before or immediately 

 after harvest the above cover crops will 

 be nearly waist high by the last of 

 March or the first of April. At this 

 time they may be either plowed under 

 or disked. The disking usually reciuires 

 the use of a small tractor or six to eight 

 horses on an outfit, deijending upon the 

 soil conditions, crop, and size of imple- 

 ment used. In maintaining the humus 

 of the soil the preservation of the wal- 

 nut leaves is of great importance. In 

 sections where the leaves are likely to 

 be blown off the grove, furrows may be 

 plowed between each row of trees and 

 thus cause the leaves to bank up in 

 drifts. Shallow cultivation is kept up 

 periodicall.\ through the summer, espe- 

 cially after each irrigation. 



The number of irrigations, amount of 

 water applied and season of a])plication 

 vary widely, according to the natural 

 rainfall, nature of the soil and general 

 climatic conditions. Whereas the grow- 

 ers in some of the dry inland sections. 



California Citrus Experiment Station, 

 California 



as for example the San Jacinio Valley, 

 api'Iy six or seven irrigations a season 

 from April to October, other regions, as 

 the Whittier district, may apply onl\- 

 one oi' two irrigations per season. Each 

 grower must be a student of his own 

 conditions. The trees should not suffer 

 for want of water during the growing 

 season, nor during the early winter 

 before the rains begin. Groves which 

 become too dry before watering in the 

 summer are very apt to shed their 

 leaves at harvest time and make the 

 gathering of the nuts more diflicult. 

 Drying out the latter part of the grow- 

 ing season also seems to be one of the 

 contributing factors which may cause 

 the nuts to fall with the shucks on, and 

 thus cause extra expense in harvesting. 

 This (rouble is more often encountered 

 on sandy soils and on those underlaid 

 with a porous subsoil, thus having a 

 low water-holding capacity. Freciuent 

 irrigations, with only a medium amount 

 of water, would likely be advisable on 

 such soils. If the soil is excessively 

 dry when the trees go into the dormant 

 condition there seems more liability of 

 winter-killing in the form of die-hack 

 in the tops of the trees. To prevent this 

 many of the groves are watered the last 

 of October or first part of November. 

 Some years the early winter rains n>ake 

 this unnecessar\, but this is hard to 

 foretell. Two irrigations during the 

 average growing season, one, say, the 

 first week in .Inly, and the other the 

 third week in August, will be suflicient 

 on the typical walnut soils, the deep, 

 rich, heavy loams. It is seldom advis- 

 able to give anything but very general 

 advice on the matter of irirgation. 



The Three Leading 

 Cold Storage 

 Warehouses in 

 the New York 

 District 



THE MANHATTAN REFRIGERATING COMPANY 



Located on N. Y. C. R. R. tracks 



West Washington and Gansevoort Markets, New York City 



UNION TERMINAL COLD STORAGE COMPANY 



Located on Erie Railroad and D. L. & W. R. R. tracks 

 Jersey City, New Jersey 



KINGS COUNTY REFRIGERATING COMPANY 



Wallabout Freight Station, Wallabout Market, Brooklyn, N. Y. 



General Offices, 525 West Street. New York City 



T. A. Adams, President 



