26 FIRST FHUITS OF THE LAND. 



This, also, will be fairly remunerative. Large dark cher- 

 ries ship well, sell well, and probably will remain profit- 

 able. The world's fairs of 1893 and since revealed the fact 

 that we grow the largest, showiest, and perhaps the finest 

 cherry in the world. Somehow, we ought to do well with 

 our dark cherries. Sixty Governor Wood and fifty May 

 Dukes, after ten years' experience, were worked over into 

 Royal Anns, with the same success in the grafting as 

 with the plum. To-day only an expert would notice the 

 graft or any change in the growth. 



The object of this grafting story is to say, " Don't dig 

 up old trees because the fruit does not suit you, graft into 

 sorts that will suit you." Spraying, enriching, and deep 

 cultivation will rejuvenate old trees and bring them into 

 vigorous bearing long before you could realize from set- 

 ting young trees, and at much less expense. 



Ten thousand square miles of the valleys and foothills 

 of Oregon are in every way adapted to the culture of all 

 the fruits grown in this latitude, of the finest quality and 

 in great abundance. Before the advent of the white man 

 and cultivated fruits, this country had demonstrated its 

 capacity to produce the wild fruits abundantly, of fine 

 flavor and excellence. The Indians, trappers, and pioneers 

 valued these highly and made good use of them. As they 

 were in some sense evidence of a soil and climate adapta- 

 tion to and prophetic of a great industry now growing up 

 among us, it is not out of place to briefly make some record 

 of them; and this seems the more important in view of 

 the fact that the pomological division of the Department 

 of the Interior has taken up the subject and is making col- 

 ' lections and urging the improvement of indigenous fruits 

 and hybridizing and cultivation of them and in view of the 

 fact that some of our best fruits have been thus produced. 



