The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1902-02-28

and Spitzenberg tree have been hard to
grow. would like to impress the fact
that Spitzenberg tree can be grown on
the trunk Of some other variety that hasa
stronger constitution.
Mr.. Smith, would advise settling
out some very hardy trees and then the
second year budding ON gratis OF the
kind you want | cannot find that the
top grating changes the flavor of the
fruit, but some have thought it changes
the season of maturity to certain ex-
tent when grating into varieties which
mature at different seasons from that of
the scion. The selection of scions should
be matter of great care and attention.
They should be selected only from the
very best trees, even from the best
side OF the best trees.
Mr.. Evans-I have worked on this
| line right along with my orchard, and
think the fact should be strongly i'm
pressed on every growers mind that on
| iv the best trees should be selected TO
cut gratis from.
Thinning Fruit, by Joseph Porter.-Af-
ter we started in thinning last year, l
asked whether we were going to leave
any apples on the trees. found after
wards we had left too many on the trees.
do not think you can thin the fruit to
what we would naturally think was too
much The trees thinned most had
splendid apples. We did not leave many
trees to demonstrate what they would
have done if the fruit had been left on,
but we have an idea the fruit would have
been very small.
Mr.. Smith--In an orchard of 80 acres
of Newtown pippins at Medford the
trees had been thinned twice and no two
apples left nearer than four inches Of
each other. The apples were the best
[ ever saw. Two weeks afterwards 900
/ boxes were sold for 81, ,000in the orchard.
ii don't think that trees should be
propped, but the fruit should be
thinned out instead. The fruit will be
much finer and the trees stronger in Vi
tality. BY all means thin your fruit.
You cannot spray your apples properly
unless you thin the fruit out. In my
own orchard, where the apples set out
by themselves there were not to exceed
10 per cent of wormy apples. while those
close together were 80 per cent wormy.
Mr.. Gessling--I thinned my Yellow
Newtowns very successfully, but
thinned part of the Ben Davis and the
rest fell off. The trees / did not thin
had very heavy crop Of very small APP
pies, and very wormy. The yellow
Newtowns / thinned were about ten
per cent wormy. | sprayed six times.
The thinning one year has no effect upon
trees the following year.
Gophers, by d. N. Byerlee. What
wish to say is in reference to an expert
ment | made last summer with RENE
dy found in the Toledo Blade poison
ing gophers. | tried trapping them
but did not succeed | use carrots in
poisoning them. have been told this
plan has been tried in the valley with
poor success, due believe to the keer
scent Of the gopher. ! studied to meet
this by digging in the dirt with my knife
until it was clean and bright, filled a
saucer with fresh dirt until it removed
the smell of the hands and dishwater
then | took carrot and holding it by
the root end pealed the opposite end anC
/ cut it into half inch cubes, emptled tht
} dirt out of the saucer, dropping tht
+ cubes into the saucer as / cut them from
! the carrot, filling the saucer about hal
full, and being particularly careful no
t to touch the parts used with my hands
The poison used was white arsenic
/ which l applied by taking an old spict
: box and cleansing, filled with the arsenic
and sprinkled on the cubes, stirring
t with the knife until they were complete
2 ly covered as you would roll fish o
) chicken in -four to fry. then took {
' stick about foot long and an inch il
t diameter and sharpened to long, slim
9 tapering point to enable me to punch /
hole from the surface down into the 60
y piers runway without pushing an,
dirt into it. | then went to the freshes
D gopher hills and dug down until | fount
the direction OF the runway, then takinl
my sharpened stick | pushed it dow