Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/500



of investing in a fruit farm has been a favorite plan with city people of moderate means, for moderate fixed salaries ; and with no class more popular than with the teachers in our public schools, hundreds of them having put their savings into such investments.

TEACHERS FOR APPLE GROWERS.

A recent issue of the Daily Oregonian noticing this phase of public interest in fruit growing, says :

"A number of teachers in the public sghools of Portland and elsewhere in the Pacific northwest have invested their savings in small acreage tracts in this vicinity, with the view, it is said, of becoming associated apple-growers. Consid- ering the price of the acreage bought, the cost of putting the land under culti- vation and buying trees and properly caring for them until they begin to bear, the venture is a brave one. This is especially true in view of the fact that the women buyers will not be able to do any of the work themselves but must hire everything done. Still the hope that induces a toiler on a salary to undertake an enterprise of this kind in a small way is by no means a forlorn one. As the years go on, this acreage will increase in value, and the apple trees, if judiciously se- lected, properly set and cared for, will, in ten years, be an asset that will lighten the prospect which every teacher faces, of being in due time dropped from the roll as out of date with new fads and methods in education that are growing in favor, but with which the practical, sober-minded teacher is not in sympathy.

The prospect of outdated usefulness is appalling to a wage-earner, whose daily necessities absorb all, or nearly all the returns of his or her labor. This is espe- cially true of persons of thrifty nature. To these the small investment made during the earning period is the one assurance of comfort in the evening of life. A well-cultivated tract of a few acres is perhaps the ideal surety in such cases. It carries a promise of maintenance in a simple, independent way.

Encouraging in connection with this venture of teachers is the experience of Professor J. L. Dumas, ex-president of the Washington Horticultural Society and for many years a teacher. To a "liking for a good mellow apple" he ac- credits the rare good fortune that has taken him from the ranks of poorly-paid pedagogues and made him a retired apple-grower. Unable to find apples suited to his taste in past years, he conceived the idea of raising them. He accordingly invested $3,000, the savings of twenty years in school-teaching, in 140 acres of apple land near Dayton, Washington. Some twenty years later he sold his orchard for $150,000, having in the meantime profited to the extent of $125,000 from the sale of apples growing on the land. Relative success with a five-acre tract of good apple land contiguous to a growing market would settle the question of support in retirement — whether from age, inclination or dismissal, for many a teacher who wonders what she will do to maintain herself when the time that is surely coming comes."

THE PRUNE INDUSTRY.

It was stated by an agricultural journal in 1886, that at that time there was a larger acreage planted in prunes in Oregon than all other fruits combined. This was probably over-stating the matter. But as the first commercial prune orchard in all the three states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho was planted by Dr. J. R. Cardwell, within two miles of this city, and as Portland has been the center of the prune industry of Oregon and Washington, it is a necessary part of this history.

Dr. Cardwell planted his first thousand prune trees in 1871, and kept increas- ing his acreage for several years. S. A. Clarke of Salem, planted a prune orchard in 1875. A. W. Hiddon, planted the first prune orchard in Washington in 1877. But the planting of prunes on an extensive scale, did not commence until 1886. Then the prune fever captured whole communities, notably that of Clarke County, Washington, across the Columbia from this city ; where there are h