THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



459 



Land Values in Northwestern 

 States 



There are but three conditions which are making fruit 

 land values throughout the northwestern states. They are 

 climate and soil, irrigation, and expert horticultural super- 

 vision. 



In the northwestern states by no means every section 

 can count itself as being included in these three conditions. 

 That fruit may properly develop and mature the conditions 

 must be exactly favorable, and favorable conditions are not 

 to be found except between certain degrees of altitude. Were 

 the most perfect soil in the Northwest to be located above 



western country, the land which would appear to be exactly 

 adaptable to fruit culture is comparatively limited. 



Many of the developed fruit projects, while having the 

 proper soil and climatic conditions, have still not realized 

 the extreme importance of the horticultural end, and perhaps 

 none of them has so fully realized its importance as the 

 Lewiston district, at Lewiston, Idaho. 



The men who have done most at Lewiston for the pro- 

 motion of fruit culture realized that success, or the lack 

 of it, would be entirely due to the agricultural end. They 

 were not unknowing of the fact that they had land of excep- 

 tional fertility, in the proper zone, and properly irrigated 

 with a pressure system of water, and they turned their at- 

 tention to the one other feature it would make for the 

 success. 



The Lewiston district scoured the West for the proper 

 expert to put in charge of the horticultural problem, and 

 from the University of California they engaged Prof. E. H. 



Grape Cuttings in District Nursery. 



the 2,500-foot level, that soil would not be adapted to the 

 proper cultivating of the apple or other deciduous fruits. It 

 is true that trees, particularly the apple, will grow at that 

 levdlf and it is true also that in many years a profitable crop 

 can be produced, but at this altitude the hazard from frost 

 is far too great to warrant the hope of great crops. 



This statement removes from consideration probably 

 ninety per cent of all the land in the three states of the 

 Northwest. Of the ten per cent remaining which lay at a 

 favorable altitude, another percentage must be deducted for 

 soils not properly adapted to fruit culture. Still other per- 

 centages must be eliminated because of faulty planting and 

 faulty care, due to lack of expert horticultural supervision. 

 It is therefore a safe statement to make that, of the north- 



Twight, who, by years of experience, practical and theoretical, 

 had made his name known in the West wherever fruit was 

 mentioned. Prof. Twight organized at Lewiston a system 

 of horticultural supervision, whereby no orchard is grown 

 there except by his supervision and no work done except by 

 his order. 



The resident owners of young properties have at their 

 command his advice and the advice of his subordinates and 

 the non-resident property owner has his property cared for 

 under his supervision. During the three years which this plan 

 has been operative, every orchard at Lewiston has been as 

 completely cared for as the best individual orchards in other 

 districts. 



Horticulturists from all the northwestern country look 



