34: PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 



souri and the few specimens remained in a good show condition, while 

 the fruit npon the competing plates was replaced several times. This test 

 was accidental, in a way, because the California exhibitor had no reserve 

 stock to replace with and was forced to let his first specimens stand up 

 against all comers, and their behavior was a revelation to all beholders. 

 California made the record then for the superior quality of winter 

 apples grown at elevations in a semiarid climate, and the question which 

 has recently arisen as to whether California can grow as good apples as 

 the northern states of the coast which have similar climatic characters 

 should be reversed. Can they grow as good apples of that class as we .' 



On the commercial side they have passed us, and they have advan- 

 tages which must not be minimized. They are entitled to credit for the 

 grand achievements they have attained, even if the calculations they 

 are making upon the basis of such achievements should prove exagger- 

 ated. They have decided advantages in transportation ; they are almost 

 out of sight of us in the important matter of growers' organizations for 

 standardization and handling of fruit as applied to the apple; they are 

 concentrating upon a single fruit and upon a very few best varieties, 

 as we are doing with the orange, but we can not compare with their con- 

 centrated and systematic work in connection with any other fruit which 

 we grow. We must do this with all commercial fruits if our production 

 is to be increased. But giving them this credit and thanking them also 

 for the confidence and buoyancy which their distinguished successes will 

 contribute to the spirit and development of all the fruit interests of 

 the coast, we must claim that they have demonstrated nothing dis- 

 tinctive in natural adaptations beyond what California elevations pos- 

 sess. The high valleys of Lake, Mendocino, and Humboldt comprise 

 half a dozen districts like Hood River. The Shasta region has all the 

 variations in altitude and exposure which has eastern Washington from 

 Wenatchee to Walla Walla and from North Yakima to Spokane, and 

 Mt. Shasta is higher and can shake biting breezes from his shoulders 

 which will bring just as bright a red to the cheek of the apple and just 

 as deep a blue to the nose of the grower as any of the northern snow- 

 clads can produce. There are also high valleys in the central region 

 and in the mountains of southern California, where the "warm days 

 and cool nights," which our northern friends are claiming monopoly 

 of, are the regular thing during the growing season and where the 

 winter is marked by heavy rains and snow flurries which are just as cold 

 and wet as theirs. But I fear that running along this line I am almost 

 conceding that the apple must go to the mountain in California, as they 

 claim elsewhere. I am not ready to do that, though I do insist if that 

 be the ultimate decision California will still be in the apple business 

 with two long mountain ranges and several short ones. 



It is worthy of note that the present fame of Oregon and Washing- 

 ton in apple growing is no part of the traditionary fame of the Oregon 

 apple which has been handed down from '49 and the spring of '50. 

 The Oregon apple which the Calif ornia pioneers worshiped and were dis- 

 posed to give the horticultural birthright of California for a mess of the 

 sauce of it, was not a mountain apple at all. It was grown in the lower 

 levels of the Willamette Valley, and, perhaps, on the lowlands of the 

 Puyallup and in other coast regions adjacent, and its fame came, not 

 from comparison with either California coast or California mountain 



