Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1913-04-24

. by American Press Association.
it is more than probable that in the
near future the Rogue River Valley
and adjacent foothills will become
enc vast fruit garden. Men who
have interests in southern Oregon
frankly confess on visiting this Sec
ton that in point of soil and climate
the Rogue River Valley carries off
the prize. Apples, sometimes of
enormous size and always perfect in
every respect, are here produced in
the greatest abundance. Wormy ap-
pies are unknown; while we have
seen orchards that year after year,
without one failure, have literally
bowed themselves to the earth be-
meath their luscious burdens.
Peaches of the choicest kinds are
grown with little care and expense.
Pears, prunes, apricots, nectarines,
plums, cherries, grapes, raspberries,
strawberries, ETC., grow SO abundant
ly as to give promise of handsome
profits to the fruit growers. AL
nonds, English walnuts, black wal
nuts and chestnuts also thrive here.
To encourage fruit growing the
oregon & California rairoad has
made special rates on fruit to Port
land. The following are the rates
as fixed for this season: Thirty
cents per hundred by the carload .
Az cents in quantities less than a
carload.
Livestock.
Livestock has been and still is one
or the greatest sources of profit to
the farmer of southern Oregon. AS
the free range has been narrowed
by the development of the agricul-
tural interests, stock raisers have
gradually abandoned the old method
OF depending upon large herds of
scrub stock, and are now raising
fewer in number but of better quail
ity w. c. Myer of Ashland has done
much to develop the interest in bet
ter grades of cattle and horses by
the introduction of a fine herd of
thoroughbred Jerseys and some mag
nificent Percheron horses. The
scraggy cayuse has given place to the
strong draught horses and the spir-
tied roadsters that boast of blood
while the marauding COW, the terror
OF females and destroyer of crops.
has retired to the sage brush to give
place to the neat, clean, fawn-col-
ored Jersey and the heayy-bodied
Shorthorn and Polled Angus.
The stock raise" of southern Ore
gon has great advantage over those
OF almost every other section. mas
much as he has within easy reach
tie great free range east of the Cas-
cades. He can have his comfortable
and even elegant home il he choose
in the fertile Rogue River Valley
and his stock ranch in Klamath,
Lake or Grant counties, being
obliged, if he has trusty help, to
make only occasional visits to the
latter. Usually stock raising means
isolation from all society, the giving
up of home comforts and all educa-
tional advantages; but such need not
be the case in the favored region of
which we speak. An excellent range
fer sheep and hogs is found in the
mountains on either side of the val
ley. The hogs fatten readily ON the
abundant oak mast, while the sheep
thrive on the nutritious bunch grass
indigenous to this country.
Mining.
AS III Odhlornld, tne nalcyOn days
of mining are past, though new dis
coveries are occasionally made that
richly repay the prospectors. There
are mines in Jackson and Josephine
counties that each year yield hand
some profit to their owners. 1t is
estimated that the yield of gold dust
fer the past thirty years has been
more than $2O,0OO,OOO. Iron, cop
rer, cinnabar, coal and marble have
also been discovered. Were it not
that agriculture has recently taken
such rapid strides as to make the soil
more valuable than the gold that lies
buried beneath its surface, mining