Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/52

46 land in New York State, and was reaping a golden harvest from the green products in New York City market.

Another correspondent, Prof. C. V. Riley, then State Entomologist of Missouri, afterwards Government Entomologist at Washington, had written me that the curculio did her work at night, and Only when the thermometer was above 75° F.; lower, she was chilled and could not work. This enthused us. As our nights are uniformly below that temperature, I concluded, and yet think correctly, we should not be troubled with that pest, the one pest that had discouraged the growing of plums and prunes in the East. We have no doubt often had the curculio imported from the East in soil about plants, but up to date I have not seen or heard of a curculio on the Pacific Coast.

I set one thousand Italian prunes, and—with the idea of filling in the drying season from the early peach-plum to the Italian prune—successively for some years I set out the following varieties: Five hundred late peach-plums, five hundred Washington, five hundred Jefferson, five hundred Columbia, five hundred Pond's, five hundred Reine Claude, fifteen hundred French prunes, twelve hundred Coe's Golden Drop; cultivated—plowed twice, hoed around trees twice, harrowed four times, and finished with clod-crusher and leveler, made of six-inch fir poles, five pieces six feet long, spaced six inches apart, 2x4 scantling spiked to ends, which has to this time proven the best implement for this purpose, and seems to me almost indispensable as a finishing tool in cultivating our clay hill soil.

The winter of 1878 was cold, the thermometer falling to zero, with stormy northeast winds for weeks, ending with a heavy snowstorm. The cambium wood froze and turned dark, almost black, the bark burst loose almost entirely on many trees, particularly the peach-plums. Over in Clark County, Washington, and about Portland we thought our trees were killed; yet, in the spring, to our surprise, they