The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1902-10-17
'N7food River Glacier
FRIDAY, OCTOBER IL, 1902.
Among Hood River Orchards.

>
Is located in Wasco county on the south
bankof the Columbia river, 66 miles
from Portland. The stranger who stops
off at Hood Riverand fails TO drive up
H0oA River valley eight or ten miles,
goes away with no conception Of the
possibilities of the region. There is
nothing in the city itself to attract the
attention of the visitor To the posslbil
tiles of the surrounding country. At
Astoria you will see evidence of the
fishing industry in the fishing para
phernala displayed in the store win
dows, at HeppDer coal is in evidence,
at Baker City and Sum pter ores are dis
played and ut Hood River you see i'm
mense red-cheeked apples displayed at
the hotels and real estate offices and
conclude that fruit raising is the prin-
cipal industry here. Though you see
little in the appearance OF the town IL
self to differentiate 1t from score Of
other Oregon towns Of similar size, yet
days drive in the vicinity will open
your eyes and you will understand
why so much of the land is not for sale
ut any price. / doubt if there is any
section in the state where land values
have so increased during the past three
years.
The road along the east side of Hood
River valley winds steadily upward.
Mr.. Culbertson, of the firm of Geo. d.
Culbertson 4 Co., mapped out days
tour for me 30 that would see the hest
part OF the country in a 20-mile ride.
Mounted on a pony crossed the bridge
over Hood river and took my way up
the valley. The road for the first mile
or so goes through the timber. Sud-
denly you round bend In the hillside
road and there wraith-like in its snowy
robes rises Mount Hood The person
who, catching his first glimpse Of that
lofty sentinel does not pause and give
an involuntary gasp of admiration, is
fit but for treason, strategy and spuils.
Its base shrouded with iow-lying
clouds, fillny, gauze-like wisps of mist
dripling across its glistening face or
momentarily yelling its lofty summit,
1t stands there vision of majesty.
The intervening foothills hide the
broad valley at its base and it seems but
an hours walk distant, though the
hours jaunt would turn out TO be a
days journey ere you arrived at its
base. 1t Is about "a miles distant. To
the north rises the greater bulk of
Mount Adams which, though beautiful,
has not from this point of vantage, the
grace nor beauty of its lofty rival Hood.
The valley widens as one rides on and
the trees give place to clearings where
young orchards have been set out.
/ can describe the east valley in no
better way than in taking you over the
farm of Sears & Porter, whose place is
five miles south Of town. The bracing
mountain air and the ride had given
me an appetite, not that one needed to
hunt up an appetite to enjoy the excel
lent dinner we had. When we had
done justice to all excellent dinner, Mr..
Porter took me over the orchard. 1t is
hard to state the simple facts in way
that will not seem exaggerated. The
trees were loaded SO heavily with fruit
that the loW-lying limbs were postEate
on the ground and the others were
braced with props, some trees having
five or six props to prevent the limbs
from being broken with the weight of
the fruit. At dinner Mr.. Sears had
given me some statistics that seemed
rather hard to believe. AS on the
Hazel Fern and Crystal Spring dairy
farms the record of each COW is Kept to
see which are tile most profitable cows,
the business is conducted methodicaly.
There is no hap-hazard guess work.
Each tree is studied, 81 kept record
of one row of eight trees" said Mr..
Sears. "They were I years old and of
course had not come into full bearing.
From those eight trees ! picked 104
boxes of apples for which received 81
per box {. o. b. at Hood River. That
makes $l3 per tree and as trees planted
20 feet apart run 10S 10 the acre, you
will see that If each tree realized $l3 it
would make the product of the 10S
trees bring 81, ,404. D
"But discard the $404 and you have
yield of 81 600 per acre. Let your
trees get to be II years old and they
will yield much more heavily, say at
least 81 200 an acre. From what crop
can you get more per acre out of your
land than that ?"
Mr.. Porter took me to see the eight
trees of which Mr.. Sears had spoken.
They were laden almost TO the break
ing point.
"They are of the Ben Davis variety,n
said Mr.. Porter, "and of course It has a
reputation of being prolific bearer.
These eight Baldwin trees will yield l40
boxes this year. We purchased 1852
acres here in the fall of 1892. There
was not fruit tree on the place. The
following spring we set out 100 trees.
We cropped the rest of the cleared land
during the next two years. In the
spring Of 1895 we put out good many
trees. We have over 5000 trees set out
now. They are mostly apples, embrac-
ing the red-eheeked Pippin, Northern
Spy, Mammoth Black Twig, Newtown,
Pippin, Spitzenberg, Ben Davis, Jona-
than, Akin Red, LAWYER, Swaar and
Baldwin varieties. We bought 152
acres for 81 500 in 1892. We were of
fered $3.50 per acre for the land two
years ago but refused it. Our crop this
year viii bring us at least $4,000 and
the yield is steadily increasing.
THAT is pretty good interest on our
original investment, think. How
ever, | will say that we have, in
country of rich land, particularly de-
sirable aud rich tract. 1t is deep,
well-drained clay loam soil. We dug
well 10 feet deep and got plentiful
supply of water. We spaded the entire
10 feet aud the character Of the soil was
almost identical at the bottom of the
we'll with the surface soil, so you see
we have plenty of depth to our land
From those 10 red-cheeked Pippin trees
we picked 20S bushels of apples. The
oldest tree on our place is but years
old. They begin to bear the second
year"
We walked down the rows till we
came to u group of 2-year-old trees,
some of them well fruited
e"We will get as mnch as bushel Of
apples from some of those 2-year old
Wagner trees" said Mr.. Porter. On
some of the limbs of the trees, especial
ly the Ben Davis, the apples were elus-
tered like curTants on stem.
= ''HOw do you produce such wonder
full yields?N inquired.
Mature does a good deal for us and
we try to second her efforts. In the
winter we spray with mixture of salt.
sulnhur and LIME To clean thefrpps .Tt