Page 12 



BETTER FRUIT 



Timely Notes on Oregon Nut Growing 



By Knights Pearcy, Salem, Oregon 



THE interest in filbert planting con- 

 tinues to increase in Oregon. 

 Plantings are going in as rapidly as 

 nursery stock can be had, in spite 

 of the extreme prices asked for the 

 trees, which run as high as 65c, 85c 

 and $1.15 each for Barcelona, Du- 

 Chilly and Daviana, respectively. One 

 grower alone planted 3000 trees in the 

 fall of 1919. 



The writer, in company with Mur- 

 ray Wade, editor of the Oregon Mag- 

 azine, recently made a visit to the 

 grove of the veteran grower, George 

 Dorris, of Springfield. Dorris has the 

 oldest commercial planting of Alberts in 

 the Northwest, having some 1200 trees 

 ranging in age from fifteen years 

 downward. His grove is planted in 

 a wonderful type of river bottom soil, 

 fertile and retentive of moisture. 



Dorris figures that his crop is about 

 normal in size, which means that the 

 nuts are hanging on the trees very 

 much like hops on the hop vines. He 

 expected his harvest to commence 

 about the 20th of September. 



The Oregon Agricultural College is 

 doing some very interesting experi- 

 mental work in the Dorris plantings. 

 It has been well known among the 

 growers for several years that cer- 

 tain of our varieties of filberts are self 

 sterile, that they will not set fruit 

 when pollenized with their own pol- 

 len. It has also been demonstrated 



that while certain varieties appear to 

 cause another variety to set a crop, 

 certain others have no effect in that 

 direction. These observations have 

 been made in the field altogether and 

 heretofore no well controlled and well 

 planned work has been done to find 

 which of the varieties are self fertile 

 and which are self sterile and to de- 

 termine which of the varieties are ef- 

 fective in causing a set of fruit on 

 the various self-sterile varieties. 



Field observation, for instance, has 

 shown that DuChilly has a beneficial 

 affect upon Barcelona and that Davi- 

 ana is of great value in pollenizing 

 DuChilly, but that Daviana is nearly 

 self sterile and, to date, no variety 

 has been found that will cause it to 

 bear commercially. This variety pro- 

 duces one of the most beautiful nuts 

 of any of the filberts, and it is to be 

 hoped that Prof. Schuster, of the col- 

 lege, will find some variety while con- 

 ducting his many pollenization experi- 

 ments that will pollenize this variety. 



While field observations are by no 

 means as accurate as controlled pol- 

 lenization work, still they have thei.' 

 value, especially in a field so lacking 

 in scientific investigation. The Dor- 

 ris planting is scattered about a 200- 

 acre farm, in small fields, with heavy 

 timber lying between the fields. One 

 planting in which filberts are used as 

 fillers in a walnut grove, is planted to 



October, 1920 



Barcelona filberts about 11 or 12 years 

 old. In this field are two or three 

 White Avelines. The White Avelines 

 never bear a crop worth harvesting, 

 indicating that Barcelona has little or 

 no pollenizing affect upon that va- 

 riety. The Barcelona trees closest to 

 the Avehne are bearing a fairly good 

 crop, while the farther away from the 

 latter variety one goes among the Bar- 

 celonas the smaller the crop until at 

 some distance there is little more than 

 enough crop to serve to identify the 

 variety. Dorris reports that this has 

 always been the case. This would 

 serve to indicate that Barcelona is 

 partially self-sterile, at least, although 

 many other growers feel that it is 

 more or less self-fertile. These appar- 

 ently contradictory observations re- 

 garding the fertility of Barcelona may 

 be due to the fact that we are ap- 

 plying the name Barcelona to a type 

 of nut rather than to a variety, and 

 careful study of the nuts produced in 

 the various plantings may demonstrate 

 that our growers are including a num- 

 ber of different varieties under the 

 name of Barcelona. The same may 

 be true of others of our so-called va- 

 rieties. There is bound to be con- 

 fusion in the nomenclature of any new 

 species of fruit when first introduced 

 into a district, as is the case of the 

 filbert in the Northwest. 



Dorris has made some interesting 

 observations regarding the Bud-Mite. 

 He finds that his Barcelona is not af- 

 fected by it, while the Daviana is af- 



Continued on page 24. 



GMC 



Trucks 



Orchardists= 



Says 



W. F. Richardson of Yakima 



"Up until last week I thought I knew something about the values of motor trucks. Since I saw your GMC 16 

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 on the farm. 

 If any one had told me that I could use a truck in my orchards under all conditions, and that the truck engine would 

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 while my best teams were putting on 4 tanks, my hat is off to the GMC. 



"I really think that you have solved the question of a truck for the fruit growers. I have thought a good deal about 

 it, but I cannot find a single fault with your outfit." 



Seattle 

 Spokane 



GMC ON A TRUCK IS LIKE USA ON A BOND 



Yakima 

 Walla Walla 



