Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1909-11-10
Worlds Fruit Basket.
Methods AND Profits in
Orchards CT the Northwest.

Writing in Golfers or "The
, Worlds Fruit Basket" Richard Floyd
Jones tells of the growth and romano
OF fruit farming in the West. MIR
Jones says that though Marcus Whit
man had driven his gospel wagon into
Oregon at the time Fremont set out
10 blaze the continental trail that re,
suited in. the conquest of California
in 1876, the real acquisition of ou1
Pacific Coas. came when the LuellinG
brothers, with patriotic he-o;sm, 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
20" The Luellings were sons of a
Welsh QuaAer planter and slavehold-
er in the Carolinas, VINO 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 81" States, leaving
orchards behind them in Indiana, I'LL
nois and Iowa, finally reaching Ore
gon and the Willamette Valley. Mr..
Jones continues:
The advocates Of 2 separate Pacific
republic, whowerewon over on grounds
OF rational sentiment by Starr King
and his ~lieutenants, were 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
cihc 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, a2d 30 its dean Germany,
France, Russia, Argentina. China and
Japan sect 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 q bushel box Of
apples, hauled more than 1000 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 can be pur-
chased, according to location, from
$50 tc 500 an acre. This can 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
can acquire ten acres, so much the
letter. From the first year he can
do better than $500 all acre with
strawberries and gardentruck planted
between his trees. If n has money
enough to buy his land, pay for its
clearing and planting, Q little con-
slant and intelligently directed work
will accomplish great results. The
superintendent of schools at Dayton,
Wash, planted his savings in or
rhards until he. had 100 acres in per-
feet, mature trees. He was not a hor-
ticulturist, but his supervision of this
large orchard was his recreation. He
now nets annually over $4,000. A
Tacoma society woman INDUCED her
self in a ~sixteen-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 in%telligently and skilfully handled
it ought to yield from 500 to $500
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 our national life, says Mr..
Jones. The economic and political is
sues of Providence and Pittsourg are