Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/45

Rh respect we were confronted with a condition, not a theory; and while leaving this condition an open subject for further reference before concluding, I pass on to a new era—premising that the establishment of one, two, and three transcontinental railways,the rapidly growing population of the Northwest extending back to the valley of the Mississippi, the limited fruit area for the few hardy varieties, present conditions to which we must now adjust ourselves.

The Department of the Interior, recognizing the fact that the vast "waste places" of the great Northwest, destined to be the homes of thousands upon thousands of hardy and adventurous home-builders, would be found unsuitable for the propagation of our fruits, ordered the importation of apples and other fruits acclimated to the regions of Russia and Siberia and arranged for the establishment of experiment stations to plant and test these trees in the cold, desolate regions north of us. Prof. J. L. Budd, of the Iowa Agricultural College, and Mr. Charles Gibb traveled through Russia and made a very full collection, consisting of hundreds of varieties of wild and cultivated fruits. These were distributed widely over the Northwest and were also tested by Professor Budd on the college grounds. All experiments, practically, have proven failures. To give some idea of the result of these experiments, and the present status of "orcharding" in the West and Northwest, I quote from an article in the November American Garden, from the pen of Prof. J. L. Budd:

The summers and winters during the past six years have been the most trying known to the history of the West on orchard fruits. So far as I know, the wreck of western orchards had known no parallel in the world's history. On the college grounds, the old orchard of 1,200 trees, planted prior to our experimental work with Russian fruits, was totally wrecked, and is now a clover field. Of the 118 varieties, the hardiest of the old list, the Duchess, Whitney's No. 20, and Tetofsky were the only really sound trees left when the orchard was grubbed out. In like manner our pear, European plum, and