which are best adapted to conditions as they are found. A study of their habits and needs and close application to detail will bring a wellearned success. With the diversity of crops possible in the mild climate of western Oregon, and the established fact that the region suffers no absolute crop failures, such as frequently occur in less favored sections, gardening on a small scale or on larger lines may be made to return goodly profits on the time and money invested. By continuing year after year to raise those products found to give best results, success may be surely attained.

CHERRY CULTURE.

By J. BEEBE, County Fruit Inspector for Lane County.

In presenting this subject I am aware that much has been said and written on it, and what I may say will be largely repetition. But, in considering an industry that is of as much importance as cherrygrowing, some things will bear repeating, especially at this time when so many who are without practical experience are planting fruit trees. Any reliable information on the more important points in the culture of the trees may be of great help to them.

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To make a success of cherry growing one must start right. a good, deep soil, well drained. That is, land where not only the surface water runs off readily but which also has a good under-drainage.

The ground should be well prepared, subsoiling to a depth of 16 or 18 inches, thus giving the roots a chance to become established down where they will have moisture, and making it possible to plow without disturbing the roots. This is very important, as there is nothing that hurts a cherry tree more than disturbing the roots. The plowing or cultivating should be done every year; for if left uncultivated the feeding roots come close to the curface for air and plant food; then, if cultivation is resumed these roots will be torn and disturbed, which causes trouble with the trees.

The trees for setting should be one year old, good, heavy stalks and well matured before removing from the nursery row. All largegrowing sweet cherries should be set forty feet apart, and the trees when planted cut back to twenty inches high. Cultivated crops, such as potatoes or corn, may be planted between the rows while the trees are small; or peach trees may be set between each row and when cherries and peaches have grown large enough to crowd remove the peaches and give the cherries all the ground.

In the cultivation of a cherry orchard there may be a difference of opinion on account of soil and moisture conditions. There are locations where the moisture remains good during the season, or we might say, where there is sub-irrigation. Here the cultivation might be discontinued after the trees have become well established but under ordinary conditions cultivation should be maintained.

After the trees begin to bear cover crops may be sown in the fall and plowed under the next spring to keep up humus in the soil and furnish plant food for the trees. Here in the Willamette Valley the vetch makes a good cover crop; for, being a legume, it furnishes nitrogen, giving the trees a dark green color and vigorous growth. Where there is plenty of wood growth, rye, oats, or anything that will keep up the humus, may be sown instead of vetch.

Cherry trees require but little pruning. Just enough in the start to give the tree its shape, or to cut out cross limbs and center limbs that carry the tree too high.

While all these things are necessary for successful cherry growing, there are still others that must be mentioned; and perhaps we might

consider these as the drawbacks to cherry culture; namely, the diseases and insect pests that work on the trees. The first, and worst, is the cherry gummosis, which, our professors at the experiment station tell us, is a bacterial disease and rather difficult to handle. The only remedy known as yet is cutting out the gum spots clean, to the sound bark and disinfecting the wounds with corrosive sublimate 1 to 1,000; also disinfecting the tools before cutting into another tree. If wounds are large, as soon as dry, they may be covered with paint to protect the wood. The trees should be watched closely for this trouble during the early part of the season.

In some sections a shothole fungus is doing some damage. To control this, spray with Bordeaux mixture after the bloom has fallen and again in about two weeks.

There are three insect pests that do more or less damage to the trees, the San Jose scale, black aphis and the cherry slug. The scale soon shows its work on the trees, but is easily controlled by spraying with lime and surphur while the trees are dormant. The black aphis is more difficult to fight. It works on the under side of the terminal leaves, causing them to roll and later to fall off. The remedy is black leaf sheep dip or coal-oil emulsion applied when aphis first makes its appearance. Repeat as often as necessary.

The slugs are not hard to destroy. On bearing trees, if a dust sprayer can be obtained, air-slacked lime may be used with good results. On young trees arsenate of lead or any contact spray may be used.

Successful cherry culture, as well as any other business, requires close attention to the several details.

While there has been more attention given to growing the sweet cherry, there is a demand for many more of the sour cherries for canning purposes then are being raised. This variety is not quite so exacting in its culture, not so subject to disease and a sure bearer. The sour cherries are mostly a little earlier than the sweet cherries, making the harvesting season a little longer.

Since cherries can be grown successfully here it seems that this branch of horticulture might be stimulated far beyond what it now is; for it has been conclusively proven that the Pacific Northwest, and especially the Willamette Valley, produces a cherry unsurpassed in beauty and flavor anywhere in the United States.

In conclusion, while Hood River has become famous for its apples and strawberries, Rogue River for its pears and Newtown apples, why may not the Willamette Valley stand out prominently for its quantities of the finest cherries in the world, as one of its horticultural products?

THE CONTROL OF FIRE OR POME BLIGHT.

By W. H. LAWRENCE, Plant Pathologist and Fruit Inspector for Hood River County.

The abrupt termination of pear production throughout a majority of the fruit-growing sections of the United States, where the pear has been grown commercially, has demonstrated the destructive nature of the pome blight bacterium. In fact, some of the epidemics caused by this parasite are so recent and the results so marked that no encouragement to attempt to grow the pear in many sections where the disease has been epidemic can be had. More recently the disease has made serious inroads in some of the apple orchards in the section in which the disease has done little or no injury heretofore. The condition of the apple orchards in some of the locations at this time is not encouraging and it is feared that a similar epidemic may occur among apples as has occurred among pears during the past. The critical condition as it is now being faced by many growers has caused the grower to enquire with reference to detail instructions as to a successful method of accomplishing the desired results, namely, the eradication of the disease from the orchard.

The eradication of the disease in a section where the fruit industry has grown to large proportions is by no means an easy task. The results usually met with have not been very encouraging but they have fully demonstrated that the best of results may be accomplished if the work is timely and is done in a careful and painstaking manner. The topography of the country, kinds of farming practiced, the various hosts, both wild and cultivated that have become infested, the moral support to be given by the community, the possibilities of the assistants to do the actual field work and lastly and the most important of all, the strength of the law providing for the destruction of plants infested with a dangerous and contagious disease, all have an important bearing on the work.

The topography of the country in a large degree renders the work difficult if the infested areas are inaccessible, requiring a large waste of time in reaching the localities in which the work must be done, as is the case where there are numerous gorges and canyons in some of the fruit-growing sections. On the other hand, where the conditions are such as to admit of diversity in crop production, there are the intervening ranches on which fruit raising is a secondary line of work, which in most cases means that this line of work is considered as of little importance and is largely endured since the fruit is very convenient for the house wife in preparing the food. The farmer is not willing to sacrifice valuable time in an attempt to rid this orchard of the disease and to watch the same to see that no further infection takes place. As long as such fruit trees live it is certainly true that they are very apt to become the centers of infection at later dates or until the disease has been eliminated from the section. It is also indeed fortunate to be located in a section where the natural barriers do not admit of an easy introduction of the disease. A wide range of mountains surrounding the section on all sides is a natural protection with which few of the fruitgrowing sections are provided.