Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1913-10-27
Orchards Company
A Big Concern

visiting the home orchard OF the Tai
ent Orchard Company and inspecting
the place, which is one of the big
propositions of the Rogue River Val
ley. The new manager, Charles NJ.
Thomas, a well-known attorney of
Maquoketa, Iowa, is another welcome
addition to the large circle of pro-
fessional and university men in the
valley who have gone back to the
soil," and he combines a trained bus
mess mind with a practical knowl-
edge of Hawkeye farming and stock
raising that is going to prove valu-
able to the community as well as to
the company itself. The writer also
enjoyed a charming visit and de-
licious dinner with Mr.. and Mrs.
Thomas and Charles, Jr., who reside
on the home orchard.
The Talent Orchard Company has
312 acres of land largely in fruit,
one of the principal units being the
famous Pellet orchard of Is acres of
Newtowns, one treesof which in 1910
produced 81 packed boxes of apples
of the highest grade. One tree this
year produced 32 boxes.
In addition to the large home or
chard they have the Gold Range
orchard near Medford and IL acres
of Spitz apples on the Pacific High
way right I'M Talent. Besides the
Pellet orchard they have several
large blocks of Newtowns and Spitz-
enbergs which are young yet and
have not reached their full bearing.
also twenty-acre tract of pears that
is expected to be heard from
The feature which most interested
the writer was the determination of
Mr. Thomas to eliminate the matter
of waste so far as possible in the
orchard business. And one way he Is
going at this is by raising hogs. He
expects next year to turn off 100
head of hogs and the year following
to have at least double that number.
To this end he is having the place
as rapidly as possible divided by
woven wire fences into about five
acre tracts SO that the hogs can be
moved from pasture to pasture
throughout the season, giving the
rape or other crop grown between
the trees a chance to grow in one lot
while the hogs are being pastured in
another. There is now fine bunch
of hogs on the place that has SIM
ply grown up in the orchard, subsist-
ing entirely on the windfall apples.
With few bushels of corn to finish
them they will be fine pork at prac-
tically no expense. The same plan
of subdivision is being put in opera
ton on their alfalfa field which is
used to pasture the Is horses used to
operate the ranch. The company
also raises all it's hay between the
rows of the orchards, and this year
raised 500 sacks of potatoes between
the trees of one of the young or
chards. OF course when the apple
orchards are fully grown they will
occupy the entire ground, but while
young the soil between the rows is
being made to produce good crops.
The farming and horticultural
work'is under the supervision of Bert
Daugherty, one of the most success
full and popular foremen ofSthe val
ley, while Mr.. Thomas exercises a
general supervision over the matter
and looks after the business and mar
keting ends. Under the management
4 of Mr.. Thomas the company is sell
ing direct, having already sold sew
eral cars for export and. is this week
packing car for the London market.
In addition to handling the products
of their own orchard Mr.. Thomas has
purchased the product of a number
of the small orchards, paying the
producers cash for their apples as
; soon as packed at the warehouse.
This has proved a great blessing to
the small orchardists around Talent
who did not have enough to ship by
. themselves. He says they are not
doing this with an intention of mo-
nopolizing things, and will gladly
) give way to any concern which can
pay the small orchardists cash for
their fruit, but they have found the
. consignment plan very unsatisfactory
on their own part and that IL big
concern cannot safely consign stock a
man with only few boxes is entire
. ly at the mercy of the commission
man and 1t is always uncertain what
he will get or when he will get it,
and the Talent Orchard Company
will assist the small grower to a cash
market till it is otherwise provided.
Mr.. Thomas believes, what has al
ways seemed true to the writer, that
it will be possible to build up a
) market direct with the large dealers
in the smaller cities of the middle
west, which will cut out all middle