The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1914-1938, 1916-05-18
.2O-YEAR BATTLE WITH
BLIGHTED TOMATOES
MOttinger Tells Interesting Story
Of His Efforts to Overcome
Natures Handicap

ley who have tried year after year tt
raise tomatoes but without success will
undoubtedly appreciate the following
experience as told by G.. H. Mottinger
of Mottinger. For more than 20 years
Mr.. Mottinger fought losing fight
with so-called blight. Now he raises
t, matoes every year and great big
good ones. He tells of his expert
rents in the following article written
tor the ourier-Reporter:
My experiments and experiences
with tomato culture in eastern Wash
ington covers period of "a years
My first experience was on Switzler's
Island in the Columbia river ID miles
below Wallula. There I raised my first
tomato plants in the west-set them
cul in silly soil and promptly observ-
cd them blight one by one until the
last one succumbed just as the fruits
were forming. Switzler's people, who
lad been there 20 years, said tomatoes
most always blighted in the west,
ard it was not much use to try to
raise them.
Their mode of treating the soil was
10 carefully rake up and burn every
bit of litter and make the ground as
clean as possible, because, they said,
Gccaying vegetation dried out the
ground and moisture was what they
were short of.
Next year, 1893, I bought the place
l have lived on ever since, at Mottin-
ger, little further down the river
on the north bank, I made my first
experiment with tomatoes. I shaded
them, white-washed them, sprayed
with Bordeaux mixture, but they all
blighted but few that had planted
where Kaffir corn had been grown the
preceding year. Before / go further,
! will say that believe the cause Of
the so-called blight is not that it is a
disease, but simply mechanical con-
dition of the soil whereby it packs so
tightly around the roots Of the plants
that it smothers them. To prove my
contention I will say that the soil in
the arid portions of eastern Washing
ton and Oregon is Of volcanic ash
and silt and the particles of soil are
exceedingly fine and small. Where
there is no humus or other larger
substances in the soil. it packs so
closely together, especially when wa
ter is applied to it, that it is nearly
entirely impervious to air, and the
roots Of some plants must have air or
they die. If water stands on growing
corn for only few days it turns yell
low and dies. 1t does not blight-it
smothers to death. Take wheat or
most any kind Of seed and put it in
pan Of very fine sand or soil and
keep it wet and let no air into the
seed and it will rot. Give it air in any
way and it will grow.
Now why did not the tomatoes grow
in Switzler's Island? Because there
was no humus in the ground. Plants
were set. out and watered which set
the soil around the roots. While the
plants are young there are an abund-
ance of small roots in a cluster around
the stem near the surface. These
growing rapidly, expand and crack the
soil and let in the air for time, and
the plant lives. After time the roots
strike deeper and branch out for quite
a distance for they are greedy feed
er and then they die because the soil
is too close and compact for them to
loosen it up enough to get air. In my
second experience they all died but
those that were planted where there
had been Kafir corn the year before.
Why did they not blight there? Be-
cause Kaffir corn forms an abundance
of roots, literally mass Of them, and
the soil is held apart by them, until
they are all decayed, which is sew
eral years.
That same year Mr.. Beavert, who
lived on an island above me, plowed up
small strip of land on the north
side of some huge old willows and
planted it in garden. It subirrigated
from the high June flood and he
raised such tomatoes the likes of
which no one had ever seen in the
country. People. came for miles to
see them and get some. The vines
were 10 to Is feet long and as large
around as hoe handle and when frost
came he had five large shocks that he
had piled up of the green ones and
vines and there was wagon load in
each pile. Now, why? Well, these
old willows had shed their leaves year
otter year in this little low place and
wild sunflowers and grass had grown
there unmolested and died and de-
cayed and the ground was full Of it
and we call it humds. The soil was
held apart mechanically and the TO-