Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/54

48 digging up the trees to set prunes. I was selling prunes at twelve and one half cents per pound in fifty-pound boxes, faced. Our Italian prunes led the market, and were readily salable at that figure. This was paying fairly well; a legitimate business, so to speak. We were then possessed of the idea that we had a little neck of the woods in western Oregon and Washington—the only spot in this great continent that could grow successfully the Italian prune. We were led to think this as they had failed in California, the East, and other localities, and, presumably, they required a heavy clay soil, and a cool, damp climate, and we didn't know of any other such country, and we were growing them successfully, and we had the verdict of the markets and all comers to that effect.

In 1871 I secured an experienced top-grafter, started in April and grafted twelve hundred twenty—year-old peach-plums into the Italian prune, putting ten to thirty grafts in a tree. It looked destructive. Orchardists looked wise and said it was an experiment; some thought it would not succeed. I had tried a few trees the year before with my own hands, and was hopeful. It did succeed. Fully ninety-five per cent of the grafts grew; enough so that no further grafting was necessary, while some trimming out was necessary. I did not lose a tree—this at a cost of ten cents a tree. I trimmed back the new wood annually, and in three years had a good bearing top, which thereafter bore the largest, finest prunes grown in the vicinity. These I wrapped, packed in twenty-pound boxes, and shipped East. They carried well and gave very satisfactory returns. I shipped seven cars one season. They averaged me $1.25 per box in the eastern market, leaving a nice profit. Continuously every year after this gratifying result I thus worked over about one thousand trees, until forty-four hundred plum trees were all worked over into Italian prunes, with like success and with a loss not exceeding