48 



of the commonest failures and that is in planting too large or- 

 chards. The fruit grovv'ers of this country have become so fully 

 imbued with the idea of c[uantity that in great numbers of cases 

 he has lost sight of quality. Where this has occurred the grower, 

 the consumer and the fruit industry have suffered. An orchard 

 is too large when its extent precludes the possibility of applying in- 

 tensive methods of management. 



The average American fruit grower has been slow to learn the 

 fact that quality of product should dominate every other considera- 

 tion in fruit production; that just as soon as quality is sacrificed to 

 quantity or to any other thing, all the interests concerned are made 

 to suffer thereby. 



In many cases of over-sized orchards the grower realizes that 

 something is the trouble, but he fails to comprehend just where it 

 lies. Or if he does understand it, he hasn't the nerver to apply the 

 remedy. 



Within the past few years certain sections in some of the 

 Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast States have become world-wide 

 famous for their apples and other fruits. This fame has been 

 built up largely an three practices ; the intensive management of 

 small individual orchards ; the most skillful and business-like meth- 

 ods of marketing the fruit, thus making a reputation which is an 

 actual cash asset ; the united efforts of all parties interested includ- 

 ing fruit growers, commercial clubs or other business organizations, 

 railroads, and other agencies, not the least of which has been the 

 real estate agent in everlastingly booming and advertising the par- 

 ticular sections in which they were interested — and then keeping 

 forever at it. By these methods any good locality for the pro- 

 duction of fruit may make a reputation which will be known wher- 

 ever fruit is eaten. In some cases, however, so much noise about 

 a locality or region has been unfortunate for it has been overdone. 



Many of these western sections to which I refer and which are 

 now known the country over, would be entirely unknown — some of 

 them not even on the map — were it not for the application of just 

 these methods I have named. 



In the Grand Valley of Colorado there are relatively very few 

 orchards of ten acres in extent ; in the Hood River section of Ore- 

 gon the same thing is true and it is freely admitted in that section 

 that their success has come from the intensive management of small 

 orchards — to which should be added, and it is no small factor, 

 co-operative methods of marketing their fruit. But the size of an 

 orchard, it should be added, ought to be measured by the size of 

 the man back of it, not by a surveyor's chain. 



Now to touch upon more concrete matters, there are one or 

 two things I want to say about orchard locations, for there are 

 many orchards throughout the country that can never be made suc- 

 cessful because their location is so faulty. Not infrequently or- 

 chards are planted on a site that looks well but if the subsoil is 

 examined a solid ledge of rock will be found perhaps three or four 

 feet below the surface. Where this condition occurs an orchard 

 is an impossibility under most conditions. 



