COST OP PEODUCING APPLES IN WENATCHEE VALLEY, WASH. 5 



AGRICULTURE OF THE REGION. 



Wenatchee Valley has a highly specialized type of agriculture. It 

 is a region of intensive fruitgrowing, confined very largely to the apple. 

 The ranches, in general, are small, those included in this investiga- 

 tion averaging 11.4 acres in size, of which 10.5 acres are tillable. Of 

 the tillable land, 6.5 acres were in bearing apples, 0.72 acre in other 

 fruits, and 0.58 acre in other crops. However, there are a few large 

 ranches devoted to fruit growing, some of them embracing several 

 hundred acres each. The region is not adapted to an extensive type 

 of agriculture. The two predominant limiting factors are the liigh 

 price of land and the small area of irrigable land. Considerable 

 alfalfa is grown in the valley, but it is largely grown in young 

 orchards, and at present much of it is being grown, in the bearing 

 orchards. The soil and cHmate are adapted to a great variety of 

 crops, but appear especially adapted to fruit. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE FRUIT INDUSTRY. 



The first settlement in the valley was made in 1863 at Cashmere, 

 then named Mission, by Father Grassi, who later diverted the waters 

 of Mission Creek to water a small garden near the mission. 



The first fruit trees were set out by the Miller brothers, some reports 

 giving the date as 1873, others 1876. The first irrigation ditch in the 

 valley was established by the same men in 1883, and still exists as 

 the ^Miller ditch. 



Practically the entire Wenatchee Valley was a barren waste until 

 1896, when the Gunn ditch was built, covering 600 acres of irrigable 

 land. During the same year the North Wenatchee Canal Co. was 

 formed and the ditch built covering the Warner Flat near Cashmere. 

 This ditch was taken over by the Highline in 1902, and now forms a 

 part of the latter system. 



In 1901 W. T. Clark, of North Yakima, was interested in the pros- 

 pects of developing the irrigation system in the Wenatchee Valley 

 and soon thereafter took over the organization of the Highline 

 fWonatchee IlighHne Canal Co.). The ditch as built covered 9,000 

 acres of orchard land and was completed to Wenatchee in October, 

 1903. (See PI. IV.) This was the real beginning of the orchard 

 flf'velopment in the Wenatchee VaII(!y. Development continued 

 until in 1913 there were more than 20,000 acres of irrigable land under 

 the difFercnt ditches. 



Tlie planting of fruit trees was more or less correlated with tlie 

 (lev('lopin(;nt of irrigation. Tables I giv(^s tlie tottd apph; acreage in 

 nortli central Wjushingtoii uiid the acreage in the Wenatdieo ViJley. 



