1396 



ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 



few orchards large enough to be con- 

 sidered from a commercial standpoint, 

 but the innumerable small home orchards 

 producing the very best quality of fruit 

 suggest that much larger plantings might 

 be profitably undertaken. 



Owing to the great diversity of clim- 

 ate-ranging from a few degrees of frost 

 toward the southern boundary near the 

 Colorado river to 40 degrees below zero in 

 the extreme north or on some of the cen- 

 tral desert plains, the state must be di- 

 vided into several more or less distinct 

 sections. These sections we will des- 

 ignate as: 



1. The Sierra section. 



2. The Humboldt River section. 



3. The Southern or semi-tropical sec- 

 tion. 



Outside of these will be found scatter- 

 ed ranches 50 or more miles from the 

 railroad, many of which have small or- 

 chards from one to four acres which pro- 

 duce most excellent fruit for local con- 

 sumption. 



The Sierra Section 



This section includes the land ly- 

 ing along the east side of the Sierra 

 Nevada mountains, including the Truckee 

 valley and those of Pleasant. Washoe, 

 Eagle, and Carson valleys to the south. 

 All of these have excellent railroad trans- 

 portation facilities. For convenience, al- 

 though farther inland, we will include 

 the land under the government reclam- 

 ation project known as the Truckee-Car- 

 son Project, with Mason and Smith val- 

 leys to the south 



The section receives its water supply 

 for irrigation purposes from the Truckee, 

 Carson and Walker rivers, and from 

 numerous smaller local mountain streams. 

 In the Truckee valley nestles the thriv- 

 ing city of Reno. Almost every farm 

 has some land planted out to fruit. In 

 no case, however, does the amount of 

 land devoted to fruit exceed ten acres 

 and in every instance the crop is raised 

 as a subsidiary product of the farm. 

 As would naturally be expected, the or- 

 chards locatfd on the foothills above the 

 general level of the valley have more 

 success In escaping numerous and some- 



times severe frosts. In the foothill reg- 

 ion a full crop may be relied upon with- 

 out smudging about once in three years, 

 while in the lower parts of the valley a 

 good crop is secured about once in every 

 five years. 



Orchard heating has only recently 

 been investigated here, but it bids fair 

 to change the present uncertain con- 

 dition of an annual crop. The uncertain- 

 ty of the crop has made it difficult to 

 establish a permanent market. The mar- 

 ket has been a local one and little or 

 no grading or wrapping or packing of 

 apples has been carried on. Consequent- 

 ly the growers find it difficult to compete 

 with the selected, packed and wrapped 

 apples from California and the North- 

 west except at greatly reduced prices. 

 The farmers are usually too busy with 

 the other features of their ranches to 

 give the orchard the necessary prun- 

 ing, spraying, and cultivation as it is 

 conducted where fruit growing occupies 

 the entire attention of the grower. 



Raspberries are grown to a consider- 

 able extent and find a ready local mar- 

 ket. Usually, however, the patches do 

 not exceed an acre, though it can be re- 

 lied upon as a sure and profitable crop. 

 Peaches, plums, pears, blackberries and 

 cherries are grown to some extent, but 

 not extensively enough to be considered 

 commercially. 



It is of interest to note that there are 

 now no well-established nurseries in the 

 state, the supply coming almost entirely 

 through agents from many different 

 states. The valleys to the south are 

 more favorably located for the growing 

 of fruit because of their close proxim- 

 ity to the timbered Sierra Nevada moun- 

 tains. In particular we might mention 

 the Washoe valley, where Mr. Ross Lew- 

 ers, of Franktown, has grown the very 

 best quality of apples successfully for 

 over 50 years without smudging. These 

 old trees still produce good crops. The 

 farm has about 40 acres in fruit. There 

 is not much vacant land in the valley 

 but a great deal that is now used for gen- 

 eral farm crops and pasture might prof- 

 itably be planted to fruit. Farmers who 



