Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/157



Ten thousand square miles of the valleys and foothills of Oregon are in every way adapted to the culture of all the fruits grown in this latitude, of the finest quality and in great abundance. Before the advent of the white man and cultivated fruits, this country had demonstrated its capacity to produce the wild fruits abundantly, of fine flavor and excellence. The Indians, trappers, and pioneers valued these highly and made good use of them. As they were in some sense evidence of a soil and climate adaptation to and prophetic of a great industry now growing up among us, it is not out of place to briefly make some record of them; and this seems the more important in view of the fact that the pomological division of the Department of the Interior has taken up the subject and is making collections and urging the improvement of indigenous fruits and the hybridizing and cultivation of them and in view of the fact that some of our best fruits have been thus produced.

The Oregon crab apple (Pyrus rivularis) is found on cold marshy ground, bordering ponds, mountain springs, and streams, and when favorably situated is a good sized tree and attains a diameter of one foot and an altitude of twenty feet. Its rich green spreading top in the season bears heavily a small, oval, golden-colored apple, which when ripe is eaten by the Indians, and was used in early times by the white settlers for making preserves, jelly, and vinegar. This species has been hybridized and improved by some of our