STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 55 



contributed to make Rogue River Valley apples sought after 

 by the big markets of the country, but I submit that cultivation 

 is an important one. 



We do not need to go west for evidence that cultivation is 

 needed in the orchard. There is hardly a fruit grower here 

 that would advocate setting trees in sod and leaving them there 

 from the first to take care of themselves. Nearly everyone 

 plows his land and cultivates about the trees for the first couple 

 of 3^ears to get them started. They know that they will grow 

 much better with cultivation than without. But when they get 

 the trees once established cultivation is discontinued, the orchard 

 seeded down and after that the trees must struggle along with 

 grass for a scanty supply of food and moisture. Here and 

 there in this state is one who believes in orchard cultivation and 

 believes in it firmly enough to practice it. What are the results? 

 I am sorry that I cannot present the evidence of each one who 

 has been practicing it. This past season has been characterized 

 by a light fruit crop all over the state. People say that it has 

 been an ''off" fruit year. Yet I have seen a few orchards with 

 very nearly full crops of fruit. In each case these have been 

 cultivated orchards. Ask these men what they think of culti- 

 vation as a practice, not as a theory, and they one and all heart- 

 ily favor it. One grower expressed it in this way a couple of 

 months ago : "You've got to keep the trees coming, the leaves 

 dark and rich and healthy, if you get the fruit." 



I do not want to carry the impression that fruit cannot be 

 grown without cultivation. It can and is. Trees standing' in 

 sod will produce fruit, not because of the sod, but in spite of it. 

 The struggle which they must make with the grass for food 

 and moisture prevents them from doing anything like their best. 

 Fruit growers cultivate their strawberries, raspberries, cur- 

 rants, gooseberries, plums, peaches, and grapes because they 

 must. These fruit plants will be choked out and killed by grass 

 in a few years if left uncultivated. Fruit growers neglect their 

 apple orchard because that fruit is tougher, hardier, stronger 

 than the others and will live along in competition with grass. 

 Give it the same cultivation that is given the tenderer fruits and 

 it will respond as promptly as they. 



If there is one implement that is characteristic of modern 

 agriculture it is the cultivator. Gradually we are learning the 

 lesson that our crops are not altogether dependent upon what 



