DR. J. R. CARDwtiLl. 7 



now published and edited by M. D. Wisdom. To-day we 

 have the Rural Spirit, Portland, Pacific Homestead, Salem, 

 and Oregon Agriculturist and Rural Northwest, Portland, 

 published and edited by H. M. Williamson, and the North- 

 west Pacific Farmer, Portland, published and edited by 

 Frank Lee. 



The early history of fruit-growing presents to the stu- 

 dent at once, a most romantic and a thoroughly practical 

 and matter-of-fact series of interesting pictures. It is re- 

 lated of some of the earliest settlers in the Willamette Val- 

 ley that nothing more thoroughly and painfully accent- 

 uated their isolated condition than the absence of fruit 

 trees on their newly-made farms. Half the beauty and 

 pleasure that brightens the life of youth and childhood, it 

 is not too much to say, is found in the orchard of the old 

 homestead the sight of the trees in bloom, the waiting 

 and watching for the first ripe fruit, the in-gathering of 

 the fruit in the fall, and the storing of it away in bin and 

 cellar for use in the winter around the ingleside. 



Is it any wonder, then, that when some of the early set- 

 tlers were called to southern Oregon to aid their fellow- 

 countrymen in repelling the attacks of Indians, and find- 

 ing there wild plums and wild grapes, they brought with 

 them on their return, roots of the former and cuttings of 

 the latter, in the hope that these foundlings of the southern 

 forest would take kindly to a more northern soil ? In this 

 act of transplanting was illustrated the world's hunger for 

 the fruit of the vine and tree, so beautifully illustrated by 

 Whittier in his poem commencing with these lines: 



"The wild grape by the river side 

 And tasteless ground-nut trailing low, 

 The table of the woods supplied." 



The old Puritans could not have been such terribly 

 stern and uncompromising foes of the good things of life, 



