18 
A PRELIMINARY REPORT ON THE 
ing, and this season yielded .12,000 pounds of excellent 
fruit, which sold readily at from 3 to 5 cents per pound. 
From Delta there were shipped this season, by the 
Denver & Rio Grande Express Company, 198,680 pounds 
of fruit, mostly peaches and apples. 
The estimated area of Mesa County orchards is 1,500 
acres. The largest orchards in the State are in this 
County, and, at the present rate of planting, this area will 
soon he doubled. A few orchards are planted on the 
bottom lands of the Grand River, but the mesa lands 
back from the river are considered the most desirable, and 
it is here that most of the orchards have been planted. 
Near Fruita is the eighty-acre peach orchard of Rose 
Brothers & Hughes, containing 12,000 trees, now in their 
prime and bearing abundantly. The shipments from 
this orchard this season aggregated 92,000 boxes. Ad¬ 
joining is the large orchard of Mr. A. B. Johnson, 
one of Mesa County’s most successful fruit growers. Here 
also is the newly planted orchard of Kiefer Brothers, cov¬ 
ering 160 acres. A few miles up the river, above Grand 
Junction, is the orchard of Mr. C. W. Steele. It would 
be difficult to find thirty-five acres as productive and well 
cared for as are those occupied by this orchard. In writ¬ 
ing of his experience, Mr. Steele says: * “ I commenced 
planting fruit trees in the spring of 1886. All my trees 
were one year old from the graft. The season of 1889 I 
had a full crop of peaches. Some of my trees yielded 100 
pounds each, and brought 10 cents per pound, wholesale, 
for the best varieties. The Rome Beauty, Ben Davis and 
Missouri Pippin apple trees commenced bearing, the 
Missouri Pippin proving the first early bearer The apri¬ 
cot, almond and plum trees were full of fruit.” Mr. 
Steele has now marketed three crops, each larger than 
* Colorado Farmer , January 20, 1891. 
