The Western Slope Fruit Investigation. 
INTRODUCTORY. 
, R d ® ^ V 0n ° f frult growers of Mesa county appeared before the 
^ griculture in December, 1905, and requested help from the 
xperiment Station in questions troublesome to fruit growers of that vic¬ 
inity especially along the line of plant diseases, insect pests, and, subse¬ 
quently, damage from seepage. 
.■ Associate( ^ Fruit Growers of Mesa county felt the need of the 
wx>rk sufficiently to pledge $1,500 toward the cost of such investigation. 
The conditions surrounding the Experiment Station did not permit its funds 
to be used for that purpose. Realizing the immediate need, the State Board 
ot Agriculture decided to appropriate money from other funds to carry on 
the mvesLgatmn for the year 1906, until the meeting of the Legislature, 
with the expectation that the Legislature would enable the work to be con¬ 
tinued. 
„ mves tigation in a general way was to include two men, a Field 
orticulturist, and a Field Entomologist, with headquarters in Grand 
Junction, and subsequently seepage investigations were undertaken. The 
Field Horticulturist worked under plans prepared by Professor Paddock 
and reported directly to him; the Entomologist worked in connection with 
the Field Horticulturist and also worked under the plans prepared by 
Prof. C. P. Gillette. The seepage investigations were under the direction of 
Professor Carpenter, and were carried on by Prof. E. B House and Mr 
F. L. Payne. 
Under the instructions, every orchard in Mesa county was to be 
visited as soon as possible, and inspected, particular attention being given 
to spraying, pear blight, crown gall, woolly aphis and all orchard pests, 
cultivation, drainage and irrigation, and in fact, all orchard operations and 
an orchard survey was to be conducted at the same time, and an endeavor 
to get the history of each orchard as far as possible. In this way, it is 
possible to find the causes contributing to successes and failures, and to 
decide what practices have proven most successful. Blanks were prepared 
for the study. 
In the seepage investigation, a detailed study was to be made of 
the location of the seeped lands, and an attempt to determine the cause, in 
order to be able to prescribe a remedy. While it was expected that sev¬ 
eral years would be required, the scope of the work expanded, and with 
the development arising from experience, a smaller part was completed 
than expected. 
The Field Horticulturist at Grand Junction is Mr. O. B. Whipple, 
who was transferred from Assistant Horticulturist at Fort Collins to take 
charge of the work. The Field Entomologist is Mr. E. P. Taylor, a grad¬ 
uate of the State Agricultural College of Fort Collins, and formerly As¬ 
sistant State Entomologist of Illinois, and in the seepage investigations 
Prof. E. B. House, ,of the Experiment Station staff, and Mr. F. L. Payne of 
Wichita, Kansas, who had before assisted in conducting similar investigations. 
This is a report of the Field Horticulturist to the Director for 1906. 
It was not originally intended for publication, but it is believed it will be 
useful, and therefore is issued as a bulletin. The other related reports 
are in preparation. 
It is desirable that the work should be carried on for a series of 
years and should extend as soon as possible to other fruit growing dis¬ 
tricts, as desired by Professor Paddock and the fruit growers of the West¬ 
ern Slope, and this continuation depends upon funds available for the pur¬ 
pose. 
L. G. CARPENTER, Director. 
