298 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
EDITORIAL WANDERINGS 
Fruit Growing in the Hood River Valley 
The apple is the fruit which has made Hood River famous 
and incidentally has advertised Oregon and Washington as 
fruit producing regions. But the apple is not the only fruit 
grown in the valley. Others are coming in. Some may be 
said to have arrived. This is the condition with the straw¬ 
berry. It has become thoroughly established as one of the 
staple crops of the valley second only in importance to the 
apple. A visit to Hood River under the happy leadership 
of one of the fathers of the valley Mr. E. L. Smith, gave the 
writer new side lights on the fundamentals of successful fruit 
growing in this section. In the first place there are “no 
knockers.” Optimism is present everywhere. All are interest¬ 
ed in the general welfare of the industry. All work unitedly 
to promote it. Whether this is carried to an extreme point 
may be regarded as an open question. It is rather difficult 
to say just where true optimism leaves off and where purely 
“boosting” methods begin. The spirit is right, anyhow. 
We need much more of this attitude in the East. The vis¬ 
itor to the town, or rather village, of Hood River is court¬ 
eously received by a representative of the Commercial club, 
who will probably arrange to drive him around the valley 
which he can cover in twelve or thirteen miles or find a well- 
informed substitute. One is astonished at the amount of 
minute details these men carry regarding the history 
of each place. They have the original selling price of the 
raw land, the cost of breaking or clearing, the cost of 
supplying it with water, together with the rapid increases in 
price as it moved from hand to hand. The visitor irresisti¬ 
bly begins to think much of real estate transactions and com¬ 
paratively little of orcharding until he is brought back to 
fruitgrowing by the prodigious crop from an acre of straw¬ 
berries, Newtowns or Winesaps. Many men, perhaps most 
men, engage in the business with an eye to speculation. 
They “improve” a piece of land, that is, plant and water a 
tract and then put it on the market. Of course home mak¬ 
ing is progressing, too, but the majority of the orchard own¬ 
ers live in town and handle the orchard at arms’ length. We 
saw, however, attractive homes established and others in 
the making at various places in the valley. One does not 
feel quite the same spirit as that which prevails in the fruit 
sections of New York State. In Hood River and the west 
generally, nearly every farm or orchard tract can be bought 
if the buyer is disposed to bid high enough. In another 
word, the owner has his price. The idea of permanent home 
making is not in the air. 
The farm of the orchard is out of all proportion to the 
age of the region as a producer of fruit. The oldest trees 
are under twenty years and the great mass of plantings 
under ten. 'The easterner must admit that the trees bear 
early. Even such tardy bearers as Spy and Newtown “get 
into the game” using a western phrase in six or seven years. 
This is conceded. May it not be also presumed that pre¬ 
cocity and prolificacy will be associated with relatively 
short life. However, this is not a serious matter provided 
the trees bear heavily during their life period. 
Hood River growers can give many useful points to 
Eastern growers—this notwithstanding the real estate 
reflections already mentioned. They are intensive culturists. 
They expend more money for instance in winter and summer 
pruning their apples than our growers dream of doing. 
Apples are thinned when necessary as regularly and vigor¬ 
ously as peaches. Tillage is of the most thorough and 
exemplary kind. Nearly every well regulated orchard 
is equipped with water for irrigating when this is deemed 
necessary. In strawberry culture it is absolutely essential 
to success. 
Finally, Hood River growers have given fruit producers 
the country over, a magnificent object lesson on the possibili¬ 
ties of grading accurately and packing attractively. With 
fruit which will run ninety per cent or over first class the 
difficulties of grading are certainly enormously reduced and 
may we not add that the strain on the conscience of the 
packer is at the same time very much lessened. Success to 
our brethren of the West! 
Correspondence 
THE DEPARTMENT STORE AND THE 
NURSERYMAN. 
Editor National Nurseryman: 
While we are not old subscribers to your paper, I wish to 
submit a matter for your consideration which I think is of 
interest to nurserymen all over our country. As I have just 
said, I have not been a reader of your columns until quite 
recently, so that the subject about which I write may have 
appeared in your columns heretofore, but if such is the case 
I have no way of ascertaining it here. What I have refer¬ 
ence to is the sale of Holland grown nursery products by our 
large department stores. In my home city, Pittsburg, three 
or four such stores have been handling these goods every 
Spring for the past three or four years. It seems to me that 
your paper, devoted as it is to the interests of the nursery 
trade, could very aptly take up a campaign to put a stop to 
this practice and the sooner it is stopped the better it will be 
not only for our home nurseries and the Holland growers but 
also for the public at large, as I shall endeavor to set forth. 
In the first place, the stock these stores carry is of a very 
inferior grade and is, as several Holland growers have ad¬ 
vised me, the “leavings” from some of the Holland nurseries 
after the wants of the regular nursery trade have cleaned 
up all their salable goods. This accounts for the stores 
being able to advertise Roses at loc. Azaleas at 30c, Rhodo¬ 
dendrons at 50c, and so on throughout the list. When the 
plants arrive at the store the cases are opened and sometimes 
the plants are wrapped in a little damp moss taken from the 
case, but usually apiece of paper is wrapped about the roots 
and after being dampened the plants are placed upon the 
counter for sale. Owing to the fact that any further watering 
after they are placed on the shelves is liable to do serious 
