of the fruit grown in Oklahoma or any other state. The fruits produced here, stored, kept, ripened, and placed on the plate side by side with the fruits from other states and tested by impartial judges, have almost, without exception, been acknowledged by such judges as being equal to or superior to the fruits grown in the north and more cloudy districts.

We have learned also that Oklahoma is to have her share of fruit insects and fruit diseases and we are also sure that it will require no more effort to control these same pests as it does in other districts. Sometimes we say that we want more rain and fewer winds, but when we notice that as we get into a district of very light wind, we also get into a district in which fruit diseases are much more prevalent and difficult to control than they are in the windy districts. The very fact that we have a good amount of wind in Ciklahoma is a help to us in fruit growing and not a hindrance. There is no reason in the world why Oklahoma cannot become one of the most prominent fruit growing districts in the United States. This leads, then, to what it is reasonable to expect Oklahoma to become as a fruit growing section. First, and above all things, Oklahoma should grow enough fruit to supply her home farm demands. That is, every farm home should be supplied with fruit the year 'round from its own orchard. Also, that the home markets should be supplied with home-grown fruit at a reasonably profitable price. When these two conditions are fulfilled, Oklahoma will be the most completely satisfactory fruit growing state in the union and that is just what she can be. There is nothing to prevent the fruit growers in Oklahoma from making a definite mark in the fruit markets. of the world, but there are several conditions that must be modified before this can be done. This will take time and effort but these obstacles are not insurmountable. Oklahoma grows a good percent of the wheat and corn crop of the United States and she has the land on which can be grown an equal per cent of the fruit crop of the United States. The difficulties that are encountered in the economical marketing of field crops of Oklahoma are just as great as the difficulties that are encountered in marketing the fruit crop. The most advanced farmers advocate marketing the farm crops in the form of farm animals, to a very large extent, but Okla homa does not near approach her limit of greatest utility in that respect, neither does she any where near approach the maximum amount of fruit plantations that could profitably be made and yet not reduce her farm crop areas to such an extent as to be of inconvenience to the State in any way.

Some of the ways of making Oklahoma what she should be from a fruit growing standpoint will necessarily be slow in their work and realization. It takes some time to grow an orchard and the great difficulty is that the elementary knowledge of how the work should be done should be obtained before the first planting is done. It is difficult to educate farmers who have all their life been accustomed to cultivating general farm crops and letting the orchard take care of itself, to consider the orchard as a crop and cultivate it as such and think of the farm crops as a side issue or byproduct. The first thing, then, is to educate the people to assume a different attitude toward fruit growing here in Oklahoma. First educate them to plant, then to cultivate, then to prune, and, finally, to spray. These are not always understood and it takes some experience and some experiment

ing to arrive at the best processes on every orchard, but it should be well enough understood before the orchard work is undertaken so that the orchard will not be ruined in learning how to care for it. Last, but not least, directly along this line of fruit growing, is the education of our people along market lines of thought and work. People must learn how to prepare fruit for market and that means that they must learn what the market requires, what the fruit market really is, and then bend themselves to the task of satisfying the demands of the market. I am convinced that nothing could be more impressive or more instructive to men who anticipate growing fruit than to go to the large markets and visit them daily and see how the fruit is received, how it is handled, how it is sold, and finally, how it reaches the consumer and what the consumer thinks of it. When all of these points are reasonably well understood, he will be in the best condition possible to sell, pack, and ship fruit and obtain a profit from his work. Finally there is need for legislation along some lines that are very closely connected with fruit growing. First, the question of transportation is a question for statesmen to work out in the legislature and if the fruit growers will work, will talk, and act on reasonable lines, they can obtain the results desired, and when all these conditions are perfected, the people will see that fruit growing pays. It is just as necessary as dairying, as growing beef cattle, or as growing your corn crop. It is not every farmer that should attempt to grow fruit for market but when he decides to do so, he should become a specialist along one certain line, the same as cattle feeding or any other line, but it is the busines of every farmer in the territory to look up and make himself reasonably well informed on fruit grow ing in a general way. When the farmer becomes informed on the questions outside of the orchard that are of immense importance to his work, such as transportation, storage, and disposition in the market, so as to be able to understand and reasonably present them to the legal acting bodies, he can obtain all that is in justice due him. The legislatures are usually reasonably prompt to do anything that a large body of farmers demand of them. In Oklahoma we have one law passed that is doing a great deal for the fruit growers' industry in Oklahoma and I am glad to have the information that it is being enforced. I refer to the nursery inspection law. It is doing more than people are willing to believe. That is because they cannot see what might have been the condition had it not been put in force and yet that condition would simply be to repeat, to a very large extent, the experience of tree buying during the last fifteen years. Rather, then, might we say, that they will not fully appreciate the good that it is doing until they have obtained tangible result from the law. We need a great many laws along that line. If a nursery stock is infested with San Jose Scale, the entire stock can be destroyed, and the same is true if the stock is infested with any other especially obnoxious pest, but should your neighbor's orchard be infested with one of the pests, you have no redress. He can not be made to destroy the trees, even though it is a menace and danger to the entire neighborhood. The nursery inspection law should be made operative and effective in destroying such infested trees the same as in its work on nursery stock.

In the older states laws are being passed which regulate the size, form, and style of package used in placing fruit on certain markets. They are

also passing laws compelling the spraying of orchards and fruit plantations. It will be several years before there is opportunity or justification for such a law in Oklahoma. But if laws of this extreme nature are valu. able in the old states, Oklahoma can well afford to spend some money and effort in educating the fruit growers in such lines as will to the greatest extent possible render extreme laws unnecessary.

RESUME OF THE HORTICULTURAL POSSIBILITIES

OF OKLAHOMA

Too much cannot be said in praise of the horticultural possibilities of the new State of Oklahoma. To fully appreciate what those possibilities are one must know something of the soil and climatic requirements and pos sess some general knowledge of horticulture in its wide range of demands.

Within the boundaries of the State may be found in abundance every type of soil necessary for the successful growing of any fruit, the climate alone excluding the possibilities of the successful culture of the tropical fruit and the cranberry of the frozen north.

A certain type of soil and lay of land may in certain localities be found to produce apples or peaches or small fruits of certain kinds satisfactorily, while the same type of soil in other localities, with varying climatic influences, might not be at all suitable for the production of such fruits. Sufficient time has now elapsed to have enabled the fruit grower of Oklahoma to work out those problems to his satisfaction; to thoroughly demonstrate what can and what cannot be counted on as positive when results are to be considered.

Since rainfall enters largely into the success or failure of the horticultural venture, the extreme western portion of the state cannot be classed as a fruit producing section unless some form of irrigation is practiced whereby the life and vigor of the orchard may be maintained and the fruit abundantly supplied with the water which enters so largely into its formation. There are, however, limited areas in western Oklahoma where a plentiful supply of water may be furnished by means of natural subirrigation.

I do not entertain any doubt that all of that section of the State west, of the 98th Meridian will in time produce all of the fruit of various kinds to fully supply the demands of home consumption. Aside from this, conditions must change materially before that portion of the State can cut much figure in the commercial fruit proposition.

Speaking of the matter, in a broad sense, however, the great futuro fruit producing section of the State will be east of the 98th Meridian and extending eastward between the northern and the southern boundaries to Missouri and Arkansas.

Within such boundaries, without a doubt are as fine fruit lands as can be found anywhere on the face of the earth, where an abundance of mois. ture is available to mature to perfection any of the staple temperate zone fruits. Too much moisture is decidedly more injurious to fruit than is too little. In an excessively humid climate fungus diseases reign riotously and they cannot be so successfully combatted or controlled as they can be in a locality less given to this extreme. Fortunately excessive humidity does not prevail in even the most eastern portion of the State except in extremely isolated instances. As a whole the soil is superior to either of our east

ern neighbors for fruit growing, and very much resembles that found in the extreme southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas, which sections have already gained an enviable reputation as fruit yielding sections.

In the early history of the State when her horticultural possibilities were yet unknown and untried, settled by people from every clime, many vicissitudes were encountered and many vexing problems were to be solved, and time was limited, if we were soon to supply our tables with home grown fruit products.

Discouraging suggestions were offered freely; the man from the north placed southern Kansas as the limit in which apples could be grown successfully; the man from the south suggested Red River as the extreme northern limit of successful peach growing.

We were freely advised that the warm, open winters would so advance the fruit buds of all kinds that they would meet certain destruction by belated wintry blasts. We were told that small fruit growing was impossible because our rainfall was entirely too limited. A few were found optimistic enough to grant the growing of grapes and plums to a limited extent. So the outlook was anything but encouraging if we were to heed the words of wisdom offered gratuitously by all the pessimists of the land. The dauntless planter proceeded, however, along lines figured out for himself, in most instances carefully considering the question of varieties, learning from whatever source was available of those varieties which had given promise of greatest returns to the fruit growers of neighboring states; bravely meeting failures induced by over confident patronage of wiley fruit tree sharks and lack of necessary care after planting. The many excellent and productive apple, peach, and pear orchards, vineyards and small fruit plantations now to be seen throughout all the land owned by men who have diligently studied the situation, bespeaks more plainly than can the pen the wisdom of their choosing.

Within eight years after the first settlement of Oklahoma peaches were being shipped out in car-load quantities. At that time, however, the early maturing varieties had been most largely planted and the orchards were small, necessitating the combination of product from several orchards in order to make up a car-load and get them off while yet in prime shipping condition. The refrigeration service was crude and unsatisfactory, and not until this was remedied and the planters learned the value of the now famous Elberta, did Oklahoma obtain prominence as a peach producing country. The peach growing industry has been steadily increasing and improv. ing, getting more and more into the hands of trained specialists with largely Increased individual holdings.

Local and county fruit shippers' associations have been organized in a few instances and many other districts are considering the formation of such organizations, whereby even the grower who has but a few hundred trees may be enabled to market his product to advantage, provided always that the care of his orchard and the quality of the fruit warrant the placing of his product in a car beside that of the producer who is willing to adopt up to date methods in his work. As in all other fruit growing states, if practical methods are not followed the product does not find a satisfactory nor remunerative market.

Oklahoma apples did not come into prominence as early as did the