THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



653 



question. It means the time has come when a lover of 

 outdoor life does not have to halt in doubt on the 

 threshold, but can change from the city to the country. 



Life in the Oregon country means that I can raise my 

 two children in a country atmosphere where they have 

 plenty of room to run and play, where they can learn how 

 to keep their own garden, care for their own chickens, 

 eat the fruit they raise with their own hands, and with 

 these have the privileges of a good graded school with 

 good companions. 



Our country of today is not the country of years ago. 

 Our nearest neighbor is not a mile away. Communities 

 are more closely knit than in New England. In many 

 places one can hardly tell where the town ends and the 

 country begins. Our homes are not devoid of con- 

 veniences, for do we not have the best water through our 

 houses and gardens, electric lights, telephones and auto- 

 mobiles, the grocer and the mailman at our door once a 

 day and a trolley line within half a mile? On still even- 

 ings I hear the rumbling and crunching of steel and the 

 distant shriek of the whistle as the car coasts down the 

 long slope in the swale. I hope the noisy monster never 

 comes nearer. 



Our apple valleys are satisfactory places for the edu- 

 cation of children. The advantages offered have drawn a 

 high type of citizenship, a class of people who seek a 

 healthy social and educational atmosphere. The smallest 

 apple valley in our state is Hood River with a population 

 cf eight thousand people. Here in a town of three thou- 

 sand, is a University Club of 110 members. At a recent 

 banquet, there were more than 70 graduates of the princi- 

 pal colleges of the United States; Harvard, Cornell. 

 Princeton, and other leading institutions are all repre- 

 sented among the apple growers of Hood River. 



In real education, Oregon is not behind other states 

 of the Union. Not a single state east of the Mississippi 

 has as few illiterates as Oregon. We have less than one 

 per cent. The West grows men and women of large con- 

 ception. Our boys and girls cannot escape the influence 

 of environment. Someone has said the westener is not 

 so cultured as the eastener, but he is better educated. 



In matters of public importance, especially in politics, 

 there is probably more practical intelligence applied in 

 Oregon than in any state in the Union. The Oregon legis- 

 lature is ruled by the people who elect and who pay its 

 wages. If, influenced by bosses, it refuses to pass a bill, 

 the people themselves pass it through the initiative. If it 

 sells out to a corporation, the people apply the brake by 

 calling a referendum. By these two devices the Oregon 

 legislature has come to be merely a quiet meeting of busi- 

 ness men who attend to the things they are hired for and 

 go back home. In many places the election of a United 

 States senator by the legislature is a grand chance for 

 bribery and corruption. In Oregon the people say by 

 ballot whom they want to represent them in Washington 

 and the legislature chooses this man. 



If you think apple growing has not its lure, you ought 

 to own a few trees irT Oregon. I have listened to the 

 cackle of my hens when every cackle meant a nickel. I 

 have milked my cows and churned when butter was forty- 

 five cents a pound. But this is not like walking out under 

 the trees when the limbs are heavy with fruit and each 

 apple is worth from two to five cents, not in New York 

 but cash in hand the minute they are delivered at the 

 depot. Think of walking under your trees and feeling 

 your pears when each one is worth from five to ten cents ! 



A farmer in the East or Middle West who spends 

 many a back-aching day in an effort to make his land net 

 $50 an acre is incredulous when he hears of land that 

 will produce from $500 to $1,500 an acre. But the story 

 of these big profits is a simple one. With the barrier of 

 big freight rates in front of him and a haul across the 

 Rocky mountains and the long stretch of plains, it meant 

 at the outset that an Oregon apple grower had to grow 

 something better than any other place between the Atlan- 

 tic and the Pacific. His hope from the beginning was to 

 produce a sort of a de luxe edition from his trees. 



The two watchwords have been quality and coopera- 

 tion. The press has preached quality, the managers have 

 urged quality, and quality and cooperation have been the 

 themes at every meeting of the growers and wherever there 

 has been an exhibition of fruit. An apple tree will pro- 



duce more boxes of fancy apples than culls, and a tree 

 loaded with extra fine apples will bring more than a tree 

 full of cider apples. There can never be an over pro- 

 duction of high grade fruit. 



The fruit growers united and with all the market- 

 ing in the hands of a trained and competent manager, the 

 orchard owners have nothing else to do but pet and coax 

 their trees. These are in turn bringing them profits never 

 before equaled in the history of fruit growing in America. 



The books of the fruit growers' associations show 

 some mighty interesting records. I saw figures that made 

 me sit up and wonder how "pear-alysis and apple-plexy 

 figures" the grower said. On September 30, 1907, a car- 

 load of Cornice pears belonging to Mr. C. H. Lewis, who 

 owns the Bear Creek Orchards in the Rogue River Val- 

 ley, sold at auction in New York City for $4,632.80, the 

 highest price ever received for a carload of fresh fruit. 

 Most of these pears were shipped in half boxes, that is, 

 each containing twenty-five pounds or about half a bushel. 

 These sold for $4.10. Out of this the grower had to pay 

 46c for commissions, 45c for freight and refrigeration and 

 59c for picking and packing. This left a net profit of 

 $2.60 per half box. Another smaller shipment of these 

 pears averaged $4.60 per half box, leaving a net profit of 

 $3.10. Another carload from Medford sold for $4,558. 

 In January, 1909, a shipment of Cornice pears from the 

 same orchard was sold in London for $10.08 per bushel 



Picking Spitzenbergs. Apples Are Often Packed as They Are Picked 

 in the Orchard. 



box. This is a price of about twenty cents per pound 

 wholesale. 



While Cornice pears head the list as far as prices are 

 concerned, other varieties do not come far behind. Bart- 

 lett pears billed from Rogue River Valley in 1907 realized 

 *%5.05 per bushel box at Montreal, Canada. A single 

 acre of these pears brought $2,250. From another orchard 

 seven acres of Bartletts were sold for $2,220 per acre. The 

 average yield is seven boxes to the tree and 102 trees to 

 the acre. The first carload of Bartlett pears that was sold 

 this season from the Umpqua Valley brought a price of 

 $2.90 a box. Dr. Bradburn of Roseburg received a check 

 for $1,740 on August 13, 1910, for 600 boxes of his pears 

 delivered at the depot. In growing fruit in southern 

 Oregon, no irrigation is needed, just sunshine and sense. 



An orchard owned by Captain Gordon Vorhees of 

 Portland has netted an average of $600 a year per acre for 

 nine years. As an income paying proposition, this or- 

 chard is returning ten per cent on a valuation of $6,000 

 per acre. Mr. M. L. Pellett sold 3,000 boxes of pears from 

 eight acres. On the cars at the shipping station they 

 netted him $4,500. This was aside from the sale of culls. 

 In 1906 Mr. J. H. Gore from seven acres of Bartlett pears 

 received $4,056.17, f. o. b. shipping station. Mr. William 

 Shevele has two Anjou pear trees which annually net 

 him from $60 to $100. Twenty Winter Nelis pear trees 

 netted $660, or an average of $33 each. Aniou pears from a 

 single tree fMd in 1907 for $204.75 net. This tree has 



