Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1915-08-09
Predicts Blight
Free Pear Tree


peared in Sundays edition. Mr.. Ben
net. together with President Kerr of
the Oregon Agricultural College and
Professor Meyers from the same in
sumtion. we're in the Rogue River
valley last week:
SO | will begin by saying that We
arrived at the Hotel Medford after
fine ride over splendid roads from
Crater Lake, 50 miles distant, which
We made in less than six hours.
we we're escorted out to the 90
acre branch experiment station by
the superintendent, F. C. Reimer,
and spent couple of hours in going
through the orchards and berry plats.
The work at the station is mostly by
irrigation and pertains largely to
fruit. As the work began in 1912,
i, may be seen that there has not
been time to set trees and bring them
10 fruition. However, Mr. Reimer
has accomplished splendid results.
The people of the county have conf
dence in him and are going to him
for advice and watching closely his
treatment of trees, vines, etc. He
has in three years assembled what
he AYERS is the largest variety of pear
trees in the world-he has a variety
of more than 500. They have been
gathered from Europe, Asia, Africa
from the four corners OF the earth
Why go to so much trouble to assem-
BILE all the known and unknown, cele-
brated and useless varieties of pear
trees in his little patch? Because
if Medford ever becomes, what its
people think, the greatest pear-rais-
ing district in the wide, wide word.
it will be through the success OF
somebody somewhere discovering a
tree and fruit of the non-blighting
variety.
"And possibly, aye, likely, M.
Reimer will be that man. He is
making wonderful headway already
and he has only fairly got started
We saw hundreds of trees of differ
ent species of pears that had been
inoculated with the blight virus and
few showed no i'll effect. When ha
gets tree that is immune--then
comes that other problem Of getting
on that stock the fruit-growng
branches, also immune. will al
most stake my life that Mr.. Reimer
will reach the goal-or reach 1t near
enough to gain renown for himself,
his station and his alma mater.
Gust a word of depression: The
question has been put to me more
than once, why do we need in Ore
gon more than one station, the par
ent station at Corvallis?" I wonder
why such people are alive. | don't
see how it is that the fool killer has
overlooked them so long. Then an
other lot of numskuls have said to
me, at is just a waste of money to
run these experiment stations;
there's nothing good coming from
them" Sure the fool killer must
have gone abroad to the war. Any
how, he is not on his job regularly.
"Now, in the name of common
sense and honesty, what good could
the branch station at Union do the
farmers of the Harvey country.
What good could the Harvey branch
station do the Union farmers? We
have nine branch stations and the
home station at Corvallis. And each
separate station has its own separate
problems to solve for the neighbor-
ing country. To expect one or two or
three stations to do the work of the
state in a satisfactory manner would
be like saying that station in Maine
would be of benefit to the people in
Georgia, that our station at Corvallis
would be of benefit to the people of
Alaska.
To say that each station is not do
ing good, splendid work; to say that
each is not manned by superintend-
ent of great ability is wrong. /
know better. And, further, | know
that the people in touch with the
stations have confidence in the SUI
perintendents and in the work they
are doing. To the man who says we
are not more than getting value re-
ceived for the money this work is
costing the state | will respond by
saving he doesn't know what he is
talking about. For can take two
demonstrations now nearing solution,
field peas and alfalfa, which eventu-
ally will repay the people of this state
of Oregon tenfold all the money the
station work will cost us in ten
years. (I get hot under the collar
when people undertake to talk down
something that is bringing Oregon
up more rapidly than any other work
we are doing.)
llThoro ic mana 10 GOV nhnnt Mr.