The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-10-27
Worlds Fruit Basket.
Methods and Profits in
Orchards of the Northwest.

Worlds Fruit Basket" Richard FLOYD
Jones tells of the growth and romaAre
of fruit farming in the West. Mr..
Jones says that though Marcus Whit
man had driven his gospel wagon into
Oregon at the time Fremont set Out
to blaze the continental trail that re-
suited in the conquest of California
in 1876, the real acquisition of our
Pacific Coast came when the Luelllng
brothers, with patriotic heroism, car
ried their apple trees in Oregon IN
1S47, and the Argonauts trailed their
picks and pans over the continents
rocky spine in the memorable year OF
40" The Luellings were sons OF a
Welsh Quaker planter and slavehold-
er in the Carolinas, who through
force of conviction moved his family
and negroes to Indiana, where he lib
Grated his slaves and hired their labor
for fixed wages. The sons became in
terested in fruit nurseries and drifted
across the three Il" States, leaving
orchards behind them in Indiana, Illi-
nois and Iowa, finally reaching Ore
0 and the Willamette Valley. Mr..
Jones continues:
The advocates of a separate Pacific
republic, who were won I'VE on grounds
of rational sentiment by Starr King
and his l~ieutenants, wer bound to
the Eastern States by strong ribbons
of steel in the early days OF Grants
administration. And in 1883 the rail-
road to Portland went through, and
soon followed the Northern Pacific to
Tacoma. This opened the market.
Before this time Florida was our or
ange State, and oranges were a lux
ury. California soon delivered an
abundance, and oranges became a
common, though not an inexpensive
fruit. Before this time Michigan and
Wisconsin were regarded as good ap-
pie States in the Central West, and
Nova Scotia and New York apples
were placed on the tables Of the
elite. The railroads soon put all
these apples in the pie pan.
The world got a good taste of Pa
sifc fruit. The departments of Agri-
culture and the Interior at Washing
ton sent special agents West to be es-
corted by Mr.. Smith over these won
derful budding fruit lands. Hood
River became the University of the
Apple, and to its dean Germany,
France, Russia, Argentina, China and
Japan sent special students to be to-
tored in the fine arts of apple grow
ing. Eastern produce merchants sent
buyers West. The Niagara orchard
lists were puzzled that a bushel box of
apples, hauled more than 5000 miles,
should bring a better price than a
barrel of apples raised at home. The
large, luxurious, costly Grated cher
ries from the Dalles of the Columbia
sold when the basket cherries of the
East went to waste. The peaches and
plums and grapes that came out of
this wonderland induced many a
Michigan and Delaware grower to
correspond with land agents a CONT
nent's width away. And California
gave US orange crops that were con-
slant and abundant.
Of the chances for a poor man in
Washington and Oregon Mr.. Jones
says:
Success here, as everywhere, de-
ponds upon the man, not upon his
money. The man who rents land
among the fruit fields is welcomed
and assisted the first year, and per-
haps the second. The third he is to-
Grated, the fourth sees his credit fall,
and the fifth counts him as a failure.
Good, unbroken fruit land "a be pur-
chased, according to location, from
$50 to 500 an acre. This a. be
:. bought for half cash and half credit.
If the man is poor he can clear it him
self, and five acres ought, in the
course Of six years, to return him
from $4,000 to $4,000 a year. If he
al acquire ten acres, so much the
better. From the first year he can
do better than $500 an acre with
strawberries and ~gardentruck planted
between his trees. If n has money
enough to buy his land, pay for it's
clearing and planting, a little con-
slant and intelligently directed work
will accomplish great results. The
superintendent of schools at Dayton,
Wash, planted his savings in or
chards until he had 100 acres in per-
feet, mature trees. He was not a hor-
ticulturist, but his supervision Of this
large orchard was mis- recreation. He
now nets annually over $4,000. A
Tacoma society woman INDUCED her
self in a s~ixteen-acre orchard at Ell
lensburg. She soon found herself
harvesting more than 1900 boxes of
apples a year, which sell for about
$1,000. There are many in the va
kima and Hood River valleys that do
even better than this, but the average
will not run as high. If an orchard
is intelligently and skilfully handled
it ought to yield from 500 to 5000
an acre, and if the earning falls be-
low an average Of $500 to the acre
there is probably something serious
the matter.
The railroads that have brought
San Francisco nearer to New York
than Boston was to Philadelphia a
century ago have been the cementing
agents of jul national life, says Mr..
Jones. The economic and political is
sues of Providence and Pittsburg are
those also Of Seattle and Spokane.
We are a homogeneous people. The