Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1906-11-06
APPLES IN OREGON.

The excellent quality OF apples
in Hood River orchards |
has been so extensively advertis-
ed as the best in the world that a |
friend of the Hood River fruit ex-
pressed his displeasure because
it has been said that as good ap-
pies can be grown in the VILLAIN
cite Valley and some other points
in the state, as at Hood River.
The discussion along these lines
has become quite animated
through the public press. Mr..
NJ. O. Lownsdale, of Lafayette,
Oregon, through the columns of
the Oregonian, announces his in
tention to soon make a public ex-
hi0jtion showing that the soil of
Yamhill COUNTY can produce as
good apples as any other locality
or valley in Oregon.
Those who have observed
closely the production of apples
for the last forty years in Oregon
remember the time when the ap-
pies raised in Lane, Benton. Mar
ion and other Willamette Valley
counties were fac-simile of the
apples so nicely displayed in the
show windows in Portland, label
ed as Hood River grown fruit.
The dwarfed condition of the
fruit in many of the orchards of
the Willamette Valley is the re-
suit of long continued neglect of
the fruit trees, resulting in a
multiplicity of insects and pests
ruinous to fruit culture.
The causes leading up to these
results have been along other
lines of natural development of
the state. Up to the year 1860
the few apples raised in the Will
lamette Valley sold at retail in
the stores at from Is cents to
81. so per dozen. Owing to this
remunerative figure and the great
scarcity of fruit, every settler in
the Willamette Valley during the
four or five years prior to 1860,
planted an orchard on his farm.
Some of these orchards were
about suited for home use, while
many others were much larger
and planted with a view of sup
plying the market with apples at
handsome figures.
In 1861 the numerous orchards
in the valley came plentifully in
to bearing, which resulted in an
over supply until soon every per-
son could get all the apples he
desired for from Is to Is cents
per bushel, while many owners of
orchards invited neighbors to
gather all the apples needed
without cost except the labor of
gathering them.
At the time there was no means
Of transportation except by team
to Portland and an occasional riv-
er steamboat from Portland to
Eugene City. Portland during
these years was about the pres
ent size of Corvallis, Eugene, AL
bany or Salem, and a few BUSH
els of apples produced an over
supply in the market, and this
amount was readily obtained
from the few orchards within 80
miles of Portland.
The only apples grown in the
many orchards in the Willamette
Valley and placed on the market,
with very few exceptions
were those dried by the house
wife, pealed by hand and spread
out in the sun to dry, and there
after exchanged with the local
merchant for goods, and by him
transferred to Portland by team
and from there by pack-train to
the northern mines.
Without market price for ap-
pies the orchards were Left for
years uncultivated and soon be
came convenient feeding grounds
for hogs, chickens, pigs or calves.
During all this llme, however,
the fruit remained handsome,
large, and perfect, until after the
,.a;lroo5c ,oada con-