IRRIGATION OF ORCHARDS IN EASTERN OREGON By HON. JUDD GEER, Commissioner of the State Board of Horticulture for the Fifth District. Nothing accomplished by man in the line of agriculture seems more wonderful and complete than an ideal orchard, growing and maturing fruit of a high degree of excellence. No ambitious fruit-grower will be content in the future to spend year after year of his life in an attempt to grow perfect fruit without having the supply of moisture in a measure under his control. Irrigation is a question of vital importance to the Eastern Oregon fruit-grower, however favored may be his location. For convenience I will divide orchards of our section into three classes. In the first class I will place all of those orchards grown on the reclaimed arid lands. These orchards could not exist for a season without the constant attention of man. They must have moisture applied in a scientific manner and the best of cultivation and care during the growing season. The results thus obtained are wonderful to behold. In the second class I will place the many orchards here and there and everywhere, which without the aid of applied moisture produce quantities of fruit of little commercial value. In these orchards perhaps 50 per cent of the crop can be sold as second or third-grade fruit. The growers know they need an added supply of water and will make a reasonable effort to obtain it, and after a little judiciously used at the proper season will raise the quality of their fruit to first grade. In the third class I would place all of those most favored ones that do not have to depend on irrigation to raise fruit. These, too, if wise, will keep in reserve a supply of water to apply in an off year when prices are sure to be high and returns correspondingly great. Every prolonged drought bears testimony of the great value of the reserved water to this class. At one time the advocates of non-irrigation attracted a great deal of attention. They proved that the tillage of surface soil prevented evaporation to such an extent that fruit trees and vines could make great growths and bear heavily with such moisture as was held in the soil from rainfall of the wet season. It was a great surprise that trees could do for several months without rain. While the non-irrigation theory is not practicable it served to prove to all how important it is that the moisture applied be combined with a high degree of cultivation to produce the best results. One fact has been proved beyond a doubt-a growing tree must have moisture to produce fruit of high market value. When other means fail, wise is the fruit-grower who has provided the means whereby he can supply it by means of irrigation. Conditions of soil and climate vary to such an extent that no set rules can be formed to guide the fruit-grower. The plan which has given the best results in my orchard work I find is shallow plowing in the spring, followed by the use of some good cultivator which would thoroughly pulverize the soil. When the soil is in good condition it will seem pulverized at the surface and porous. Do not irrigate until you perceive that cultivation has failed to furnish the needed moisture. This you should be able to do before the tree suffers. Cultivation should be continued at intervals of two weeks during the growing season. When the best work for moisture reception and retention has been done, and still the tree shows distress during a drought, or when the fruit is not of satisfactory size or quality, and the trees have been properly pruned and thinned, it is best to secure irrigation to aid the natural supply of moisture. Experienced growers soon learn to recognize the signs of dis tress in a tree suffering for moisture: Small leaves, short and thin wood growth. Sometimes trees which make a good wood growth will fail to hear fruit from a failure of moisture when the fruit buds should develop. A prevention of this is of course irrigation applied in advance of the need. A supply of water is invaluable in many localities during the first season after planting an orchard. Trees set in the early spring will start and make a fine growth for a few months, but as the season advances the leaves will wither and fall off. The roots cannot penetrate during the first season to a depth that will insure the life of the tree. A little attention at this time will insure the welfare of the tree. The first summer of a young orchard is a trying one. Too much care and attention cannot be given it. There is always a disposition at first to use too much water; and to the unwise use of water are due the evils that have been charged against irrigation. The claim that irrigated fruit is lacking in flavor was based on the fact that some growers chose to produce monstrous, insipid fruit by excessive irrigation. Many concluded that all irrigated fruit was necessarily poor and failed to supply the needed water to trees, and gathered only small, unmarketable fruit because the natural rainfall failed to supply the needed moisture to develop first-grade fruit. It is now conceded that the highest quality, including flavor as well as size, can be secured only by adequate moisture; it matters not in what manner it reaches the roots of the tree. JUDD GEER, Commissioner for Fifth District. THE WALNUT IN OREGON By H. M. WILLIAMSON, Secretary of the Oregon State Board of Horticulture. As The planting of walnut trees was commenced in a small way in Oregon many years ago. Evidence of this was found at the apple and walnut show held at McMinnville in 1907, at which walnuts were exhibited which came from trees of the fourth generation grown from seed in this State. Many of the earlier plantings were of nuts bought at grocery stores. A few immigrants from Germany sent to the Fatherland for walnuts for planting. In those cases in which the nuts planted were grown in Germany or France the trees have usually proved fruitful; when the nuts came from Chile, or were grown in California from trees of what are commonly known as the Santa Barbara type, the trees have borne only in rare instances. the greater part of the earlier plantings were of the Chilean and Santa Barbara nuts, the belief long ago became prevalent in Oregon that the walnut would not bear enough nuts in this State to make its culture here profitable. Some twenty-five or thirty years ago the late Mr. Felix Gillet of Nevada City, California, called attention to the fact that the varieties of walnuts raised in France start into growth very much later in the spring than the Chilean varieties, and thus escape the frosts which make the Chilean varieties unfruitful in Northern California and Oregon. Colonel Henry E. Dosch of this State became interested and was soon convinced that the French varieties of walnuts would find most congenial conditions in Oregon. By addresses at horticultural meetings and articles written for the press he awakened interest here. About 1888 the planting of Franquette, Mayette and other varieties of French walnuts was commenced in an experimental way in Oregon. It is true that a few trees of the Proeparturiens and other French varieties had been planted prior to that time, but it was not until the Mayette and Franquette trees planted near Portland in Oregon and Washington began to bear that much interest was shown. The very satisfactory results obtained from young bearing trees in the vicinity of Vancouver, Washington, prompted the planting of the first large grove in Oregon, that of Thomas Prince at Dundee. Of one hundred acres now in walnuts on the farm of Mr. Prince, fifty acres were planted from ten to twelve years ago, or from 1896 to 1898. The walnuts grown by Mr. Prince and others in Oregon have awakened great interest in walnut culture in this State, and the danger of over-production has been suggested. Existing conditions, however, show little reason for this fear. More than ten years ago it was predicted that within ten years California would be producing more walnuts than would be consumed in the United States. This prediction has not been verified. The walnut crop of California for 1907 was but about twenty per cent larger than that of 1896, and the industry does not appear to be growing perceptibly in that state at the present time if we may judge from the annual estimates of the quantity of walnuts grown there. In that portion of the state in which the greater portion of the walnut crop is produced the price of land is from three to five times as much as land adapted to walnut culture can be bought for in Oregon. This high price of land has naturally checked the planting of new groves in that portion of the state. While there has been but slight increase in the production of walnuts in California in the past six or eight years the demand for walnuts in the United States has grown at an unprecedented rate. Of the whole weight of walnuts imported for use |