The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1905-01-19

44VOO 4e1 4l4eS Ma
late fall. After the crop of berries is
picked they remove all the vines and
hand rake all trash and haul it off
the ground and burn 1t.
cultivation from early spring until
1t would make any man who admires
the beauty of nature feel as If he. had
peen well paid for having made a.trip
through any of our berry districts in
the spring after the new leaves have
come forth with their dark green TO
liage intermingled with a million
snow white blossoms. I'll submit; |
can't describe or word-paint this pic
ture.
= Our berry growers do not use any
mulching but use irrigation during
our berry season.
The cultivation of our apple orch
ards is matter of pride to all of
Hood Rivers progressive and success
full orchardists. Before tree is plant
ed the soil is cultivated in the best
possible condition. You can't dig a
tree hole too deep or too broad.
Twenty inches deep and three feet
across is about the average size of
holes dug before planting trees in
our valley You can't plow your or
chards too deep while young | have
plowed my 20-acre commercial apple
orchard twice, while trees we're small,
to depth of 16 inches while trees
we're small, by using a subsoil pillow
and | have every reason to believe
that it was a paying investment of
time and labor.
Our climate is very dry one dur
ing the summer season and we must
give our orchards clean and thorough
cultivation in order to retain moisture
without irrigation So well do our
orchardists cultivate their orchards
that oftentimes you can look over a
large orchard and find scarcely weed
in it and the top of soil win be a
blanket of dust from two to four feet
deep.
Our orchardists have learned that
it pays to prune their trees and thin
their fruit intelligently in order to
secure excellency in color and size.
They have also learned that it pays
to keep the spray pump in action and
| UIl0 I6WdIu lOI butIE
are SO great that from So to SO per
cent of their apples are free from cod
lin moth worm, San Jose scale or any
fungus growth. We spray from one
to two times with the winter spray
and, sulpher and lime; from six to
eight times during the summer with
arsenite of soda and lime. The vel
low Newtown and Esopus Spitzen-
burg are the greatest favorites and
most successful varieties of apples
grown in our valley. / would not ad-
wise you to plant these varieties ex-
tensively until you have given them
fair test; for the locality to which
these two varieties can be successful
ly grown is very rare. | know an Or
chardist in the Willamette valley who
grew young Newtown orchard until
it was six years old and then dug
out every tree. They were an absolute
failure in that soil and climate.
Plant those varieties best adapted
to your soil and climatic conditions.
Boise valley may grow the Rome
Beauty and Jonathan as successfully
as Hood River can grow the Newtown
and SpitZenburg. We must not for
get an important factor in building
up reputation for our Hood River
fruits has been the making of fruit
growing speciality with us. There
is no side issue business about it.
Every fruit grower is making his vo-
cation a study and improving his
methods at every opportunity. Our
efforts are greatly benefited by our
excellent transportation facilities.
We have the Columpia River and
railroad along its bank competing for
the hauling of our fruits. This gives
a cheap rate of five cents per hax into
Portland, Ore, and from there we
have access to four transcontinental
railroads and the entire system, di-
reclty or indirectly, of all the Pacific
coast and oriental steamship lines.
Fellow fruit growers, most of us can
understand how to grow fruit; but af-
ter it has been grown we are compelled
whole business and that is how to
perpare it for and get it to the best
markets and return it's net cash value
to the grower.
This has been and is today the par
amont study of the Hood River fruit
growers. They have met in fruit
growers meetings, have held horti-
cultural institutes and have banded
themselves into cooperative bodies
in order to solve the problem and
they have thoroughly demonstrated
that it requires all these tactics to ac-
complish the greatest results. We,
as fruit growers, do not meet in our
respective localities as often as we
should. At these meetings we can
talk over local conditions and greatly
benefit each other. Our successful
Hood River fruit growers are wide
awake to the Importance of such
meetings Only a few days ago we
held mass meeting of fruit growers
and instructed our county representa-
tive to our state legislature now in
session, what new horticulture legisla-
tion we desired.
Our strawberry growers and oul
a )ple growers are both we'll organ
lzed, each having special separate
organization working in perfect har-
mony with each other and | firmly
believe we're it not for our fruit or
CARNATIONS our strawberry interest
would perish and our apple industry
would be reduced to a deplorable
condition.
Our strawberry growers union
through its school of experience
has given its members such valuable
advice as this: Berries must not be
picked while moist-Berries must be
pink all over, or q red Berries should
be picked ripper in cool weather than
in warm-Pickers must not hold sew
eral berries in hand at the same time
Filled boxes must not stand in the
sun-Berries should be picked with
the stems d of an inch long-Put no
culls in the box, put in only fair
sized berries-Face top layer with
the stems down in rows of four or
five-Allow no berries to project over
the edge of the boxes use clean
crates and when filled place in a cool
place, and haul your berries in spring
wagons with covers over them.
Our Apple Growers union last sea-
son gave its covers equally as good
advice and instructions in print
ed letter sent to each of its members,
a part of which reads as follows: