PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 41 



I get it from him. In grapevines, strawberries, berries of all kinds, small 

 fruits, we can keep up a pedigreed stock almost absolutely. There are 

 little influences quite frequently that we can not quite overcome, but 

 when it comes to grafting or budding orange trees, for example, there 

 are problems or influences coming in to contend with that are almost 

 insurmountable. Sometimes we will succeed. At other times, under 

 apparently the same identical conditions, as far as Ave can see. we will 

 fail; why, I am not going to answer. I can give you an illustration. 

 I have done a good deal of top-grafting in my orchard. I started 

 out. away up in the mountains, to try and demonstrate the apples that 

 would succeed there in that location best. I made many mistakes, 

 like a great many other people, and I found it out, but by experiment- 

 ing I found apples that pleased me, and my idea was. those trees that 

 did not please me, did not produce fruit to satisfy me, to top-graft 

 them, and I chose a few, and my grafting has been by carefully select- 

 ing the scions from the trees that pleased me most, that bore the finest 

 fruit, made the finest crops. That far we can go, and when you come to 

 put them into the other stocks, whether it is a small nursery stock or in 

 a bearing tree, we scarcely know what we are going to get. that is. for 

 quality. It is claimed that the stock docs not influence the scion to any 

 great extent, but in many cases I know it influences the Scion to a very 

 great extent. For instance, I have a neighbor living within three or 

 four miles of me who had one of the earliest orchards in that northern 

 region, early in the sixties. At that time our nurseries had almost every 

 variety that you could get, and. as it happened, there were a great many 

 of the old grindstones planted in that orchard, the American Pippin. 

 After they were thirty years old it was found they were of no value, 

 and he happened to find a very fine strain of the Ben Davis apple. It 

 pleased him — and, by the way, the Ben Davis can grow up in those 

 mountains to perfection. He got some scions and had his trees top- 

 grafted. When they came into bearing they were neither grindstone 

 nor Ben Davis nor anything else ; they were a complete blending all 

 over, with the prominent bright stripe of the Ben Davis ; they were only 

 medium in size and were perfectly worthless. That was the best illus- 

 tration of that one thing that I have seen. How we are going to over- 

 come those things I don't know, I don't propose to answer. We have 

 got to contend with those outside influences, and how they come in I 

 leave it to your scientific friends to find out. (Applause.) 



MR. NEWCOMB. Mr. Chairman. I would like to say just a word 

 in defense of the Oregon apple grower and the prices they are obtain- 

 ing. Last year the apple growers at Hood River marketed 300 cars of 

 apples. There were 75 cars, or 25 per cent, that brought these fancy 

 prices — $2.25, $1.75, and $1.50. Mind you, they were the very cream 

 of the crop. We only hear of the best. Portland got all of their 

 inferior apples ; they use that for a dumping ground ; but by careful 

 selection thev do obtain these prices. 



MR. HOTLE. The firm of Hunt, Hatch & Co. of San Francisco 

 bought one carload of their fancy apples ;' they paid $2.25 f . o. b. there, 

 but, as Mr. Newcomb savs. they were the best. 



PRESIDENT JEFFREY. ^The average Hood River apple this year 

 brought from $1.45 to $2.15 up to $2.25 per box. I never knew the 

 Ben Davis grew to perfection anywhere, but I will take Mr. Femmons ' 



