and orchards in the State which had become a public nuisance and a great drag upon the development of the fruit-growing industry of the State. Owing to the great planting of apple orchards in Oregon in the gold-mining days when apple-growing was extremely profitable, and the fact that for many years the production of apples in this State was many times as great as was required to supply all markets which could then be reached, the Willamette Valley contained a great acreage of long-neglected and worthless orchards. In no other portion of the State was there so much to be done in the way of getting neglected orchards cleaned up or destroyed. The work has not been completed, and the census figures of 1910 as to number of trees by counties are not yet at hand, but it is probable that at least one-half of all the trees which went out of existence for the benefit of their owners and the public generally in the last decade were in the Willamette Valley. The beneficial effects of their destruction are plainly seen in the remarkable growth of production of tree fruits in the last decade, as shown by the census reports giving the aggregate yield in bushels of apples, plums and prunes, pears, peaches and cherries in the counties which lie in the Willamette Valley for the crop years of 1899 and 1909:

This shows that the percentage of increase of production of tree fruits in the Willamette Valley for the decade was more than double that of the State as a whole. A large share of this great increase in the Willamette Valley was due to prunes. The prune orchards were yet young in 1900 and most of them had not then come into full bearing. With apples it was different. There were almost no young apple orchards in the valley in 1900. The yield of apples had been decreasing for nearly twenty years and in 1899 the yield for the whole valley was only 310,000 bushels from more than 1,500,000 trees. There was at that time a general feeling of discouragement and hopelessness about the apple industry in the Willamette Valley. With the destruction of a great share of the worthless trees and better care of what were left apple production made an excellent start upwards again during the decade as shown by the following table giving the yields of apples for the valley counties for 1899 and 1909:

County

Clackamas

Marion

Linn

Lane

Benton

Polk

Washington
Yamhill

Apples

Bushels 1899

Apples Bushels 1909

It will be seen that the percentage of increase for the valley for the decade was 157 per cent, as compared with an increase of 132 per cent for the State as a whole. The Oregon Agricultural College deserves much credit for the part it has done in bringing about better care of the orchards.

SMALL FRUITS.

Complete statistics from the 1910 census as to small fruits are not yet available. The following was the production in quarts of the principal small fruits in the crop years of 1899 and 1909:

The value of the crop of small fruits for 188 was $386,632. The figures for 1909 are not available, but as prices were materially higher in 1909 than in 1899 the value of the crop of 1909 probably exceeded $800,000.

The crop of grapes decreased from 5,389,000 pounds valued at $162,543 in 1899 to 3,207,000 pounds valued at $99,000 in 1909. The decrease in this industry has been due to the low average of prices for grapes which have prevailed in Oregon during the greater part of the decade.

CLIMATIC CONDITIONS IN OREGON.

By H. M. WILLIAMSON, Secretary of State Board of Horticulture.

(All figures relating to temperature and rainfall, and most of those giving elevations in this article are from the publications of the Oregon Section of the Climatological Service of the Weather Bureau of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Edward A. Beals, district forecaster and section director, Portland, Oregon. For fuller details as to climatic conditions in this State, address Oregon Section, U. S. Weather Bureau, Portland, Oregon.)

From the nature of a large number of inquiries which come to the office of the State Board of Horticulture, it is apparent that many persons who live east of the Rocky Mountains have a very vague understanding of climatic conditions in Oregon. The question most commonly asked is "What is the average temperature and average rainfall in Oregon?" It is easy to answer this question by giving the normal average temperature for all observation stations in the State, which is 50.2 degrees, and the average annual rainfall for all the stations which is 38.71 inches. This reply would be worse than valueless to a person intending to settle at Burns where the annual temperature is 43.7 degrees, and the annual rainfall is 10.58 inches. The annual temperature also lacks much of being a reliable indicator of summer and winter temperatures. The average annual temperature at Marshfield, Oregon, is 49.4 degrees; at Heppner, 50.2 degrees, a difference of only .8 of a degree. The temperature of January at Marshfield is 44.7 degrees; at Heppner, 32.9 degrees. The temperature of July at Marshfield is 59.4 degrees; at Heppner, 68.8 degrees. The annual temperature at Marshfield is seven degrees warmer than it is at Joseph, but the months of June, July and August are all warmer at Joseph than at Marshfield.

The person who has always lived in regions where there are but slight differences of elevation above sea level, or which are remote from an ocean, find it hard to understand climatic conditions in Oregon. Except as modified by mountain ranges, the elevation of the State tends to increase towards the south, and we find that the highest annual temperature at any station is at Blalock on the northern boundary of the State. The ocean profoundly affects the climate by making the winters warmer and the summers cooler. The remarkably small difference between the temperatures for January and for July at Marshfield is due to the fact that Marshfield is but a few miles from the ocean. The modifying effect of the ocean is disturbed by ranges of mountains which interfere with and deflect the currents of air from the ocean, as they pass towards the interior. The Coast Range and Cascade Mountains also greatly affect the rainfall in the different portions of the State. The chilling of the air as it rises over the mountains forces out moisture. The loftier the mountains and the lower the temperature reached by the air the less moisture remains in it. It is generally the case that in any given section rainfall increases with altitude, although not necessarily in the same proportion. It is the.

case throughout Oregon and on the Pacific Coast generally that there is very little rain in summer and that most of the precipitation for the year comes in the winter months. The proportion of sunshine is larger east of the Cascade Mountains than west of those mountains, but even in western Oregon there is more sunshine in summer than in the states on the Atlantic Coast. Throughout the State there is much less wind during the year than in the prairie states of the middle west and for this reason there is much less evaporation of moisture from the surface of the soil.

The lofty range of the Cascade Mountains which extends throughout the State from north to south divides the State into two sections which differ widely. In the greater part of western Oregon the annual rainfall is ample for the production of good crops of all fruits without the aid of artificial irrigation. The exception to this is that portion of western Oregon commonly referred to as southern Oregon, or the Rogue River valley, where irrigation is essential for the best results on much of the land. In eastern Oregon the annual rainfall averages less than onefourth as much as in western Oregon. The largest rainfall at any station east of the Cascade Mountains at which observations have been made for a considerable period of time has been recorded at Hood River where it amounts to about 36 inches, closely approaching that of some portions of the Willamette Valley in western Oregon. The Hood River Valley, however, is not far east of the summit of the Cascade Mountains, and the rainfall decreases rapidly to the eastward. Under favorable conditions there are successful orchards which are not artificially irrigated in a number of localities in eastern Oregon, even where, in some cases, the annual rainfall is as low as 16 inches per year, but the general rule in that portion of the State is that artificial irrigation is essential to success in orcharding, and even at Hood River where the annual rainfall exceeds 35 inches per year many of the orchardists believe it pays to irrigate their orchards. Stone fruits, particularly cherries, peaches, apricots and some varieties of plums can be grown with less annual rainfall than is required for apples, and most kinds of small fruits require even more rainfall than apples.

In this article the word rainfall is used to include the total amount of water which falls whether it comes in the form of rain or of snow.

COUNTY CONDITIONS.

The natural order of taking up counties for the purpose of giving figures as to rainfall and temperature would be by groups of those having like conditions but it is believed that it will best suit the convenience of inquirers to take up the counties alphabetically.

BAKER COUNTY.

Baker County is on the eastern border of the State, and on the eastern slope of the Blue Mountains. At Baker, the county seat, the elevation is 3,466 feet. The mean temperature for the year is about 45 degrees. Three years observations show the temperature of January to be 20.3 degrees; April, 44.6; July, 66.9; October, 48.5. The rainfall for the year is 13.7 inches. The growing season between killing frosts is about 134 days. At Huntington, on the Snake River, the elevation is 2,165 feet. The anuual temperature is 53.6 degrees; that of January, 32.1; April, 58.6; July, 81.5; October, 51.8. The length of season between killing frosts is about 168 days, or about the same Burlington, Iowa, Indianapolis, Indiana, and Roanoke, Virginia.

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