THE HOME ORCHARD 
A home orchard, properly selected as to varieties can be made to 
produce a large quantity of food and to thereby greatly reduce the 
grocery bill as well as to enable the owner to set a better table. How¬ 
ever, the family orchard is too often a haphazard collection of varieties. 
The average man knows little of varieties, their seasons of use, their 
qualities and their bearing habits. The suggestions herein are aimed 
towards helping such prospective growers in selecting a well balanced 
list of fruits and nuts. 
The ideal towards which one should work in selecting trees for 
a family planting should be to chose those varieties that will produce a 
wide variety of canned fruit and which will supply fresh fruit through 
the longest possible season from the least number of trees possible. In 
the following lists we have this thought in mind. The varieties printed 
in black-faced type are the most essential for family orchard use and 
the others mentioned will supplement these varieties. 
FILBERTS. The nut trees will produce more dollars worth of food 
and will do it with less attention than the other fruit trees. The filbert 
is the best adapted of all nut trees to Northwest conditions. It bears 
young, regularly and heavily. Barcelona and DuChilly are the most 
popular home varieties. Brixnut produces larger nuts, which is a valu¬ 
able trait for a commercial variety but is less important for the home 
planter. Half a dozen filbert trees is not too many, especially if there 
are children in the family. 
WALNUTS. Every country home should have two or more English 
walnut trees. They are a little slow to come into bearing, not doing much 
before eight years, but once in bearing they yield bountifully. These 
trees can well be planted in the home grounds as shade trees, if aided 
by a little watering during early life. 
CHESTNUTS. The chestnut thrives in our better drained soils and 
makes a nice shade tree and at the same time produces large crops Pf 
nuts. Large American Sweet, Fuller and Rochester are good varieties. 
ALMONDS. While the almond is not a regular bearer in the rainy 
west of the mountain region still the local varieties that we offer bear 
frequently enough to warrant their being planted in the more complete 
family orchards. 
APPLES. Yellow Transparent is the best of the early summer 
apples. Fine for cooking. Gravenstein and the new Red Gravenstein 
are late summer varieties of the highest quality, and one or the other 
should be in every family orchard no matter how small it is. Yellow 
Delicious is the most popular seller of the winter varieties. It bears 
young and regularly and is a splendid keeper. If there is room for 
more varieties than the above the succession of ripening will be made 
more complete by adding either King or Jonathan to fill in after the 
Gravensteins are gone and by adding Rome Beauty as an extra late 
keeper. Not much to eat fresh but Rome is one of the best keepers and 
bears regularly. Other varieties valuable in the home orchard are 
Ortley (a yellow variety), Red Delicious, Spitzenberg and Yellow 
Newtown. For crab apples Transcendent, Hyslop and Whitney are all 
good. 
PEARS. If only one pear is to be planted use Bartlett. A fine 
canner as well as a splendid fresh variety. Ripens in late summer. Bose 
is a splendid dessert variety, ripening in October. Anjou is the best of 
the late keepers. 
CHERRIES. Where room is limited use Royal Anne and Hoskins 
for sweet cherries. Hoskins is a splendid pollenizer for the other sweet 
cherry varieties and is probably the best eating of all the pollenizers. 
Resembles a Bing. Lambert will extend the cherry season and will not 
crack in the rain as badly as does Bing. Montmorency is the best of the 
sour or “pie” cherries. 
PEACHES. The best single variety for home orchard use is 
Rochester, a hardy, productive canning and dessert variety of the Craw¬ 
ford type. To lengthen the fresh peach season add Triumph, a yellow 
fleshed variety, bearing heavily and regularly and ripening well ahead 
of Rochester. Mayflower, a small white variety, is still earlier and 
J. H. Hale ripens later than Rochester and is a fine variety. 
APRICOTS. These do not fruit quite as regularly west of the 
mountains as do the peaches. Southwick is our choice. This is a local 
variety that has fruited well in the Willamette valley for 40 years. 
Wenatchee Moorpark is also popular. 
PLUMS and PRUNES. Italian is the best of this group. Bears well, 
cans well and is of high quality. Peach plum, Green Gage, Blue Dam¬ 
son, Shiro and Satsuma are all good plums. 
FIGS. Latturula Honey is a white, seedless fig that bears two crops 
annually in the Northwest. It is the best adapted of all the figs. Freezes 
down in severe winters but grows again from the roots and within a 
year is bearing again. 
QUINCE. A tree of quinces is an addition to the orchard of those 
who make much of jelly and preserves. Champion and Pineapple are 
leading varieties. 
PERSIMMON. The Japanese varieties, Fuyu and Hichiya are 
hardy and bear well. They are not astringent as is the native persim¬ 
mon. 
The federal government is making much of “Subsistence Farming” 
or placing part time workers on tracts of land where they may grow 
much of their food supply when out of employment. Whether you are 
a part time worker or not you should make your country tract a “Sub¬ 
sistence Farm” for you never know when conditions may make such a 
farm a life-saver to you. Plant a good family orchard and a home berry 
planting. Plant this fall. Don’t delay. 
Write for our leaflet on “The Home Berry Planting.” It is free. 
PEARCY BROS. NURSERY 
Salem, Oregon 
