is a large hairy berry, edible, but rather insipid, and is not much used. Two others are red and brown when ripe, a fourth of an inch in diameter, sweetest tart; good for culinary purposes; do not know of their cultivation.

Four or more Cranberries are found in the State. Viccinium Parvifolium is a pale-red berry, small, dry, with a very slight cranberry taste, and not used. Viccinium Ovalifolium, high bush Cranberry, is a large blue berry, good, and in some localities where fruit is scarce, very useful; much sought by the Indians. V. Microphyllum is a red, high bush Cranberry, smaller, juicy and palatable; only found high up in the mountains. Another is found in the Cascade and Coast Ranges as an evergreen bush, and bears a dark-purple berry; edible. Local botanists speak of other varieties.

The Barberry (Berberis Aquifolium), Oregon Grape, so called, is a superb and elegant ornamental evergreen shrub, in leaf somewhat resembling the English holly; in the wild state growing two or three feet high; under cultivation making a showy lawn plant, six to eight feet high, with finely cut, polished leaves and symmetrical head; early in the spring bearing a profusion of showy, yellow flowers, followed in their season by clusters of dark purplish black berries, the size of wild cherries; altogether a thing of beauty rarely equaled; fruit acid and makes a fine beverage, and good pies or preserves. Berberis Aquifolium has been adopted by the Oregon State Horticultural Society as the State flower. There is one other of the Barberry family, a smaller variety.

The Salal (Gultheria Myrsinites) is scattered through the dense fir forests of the State; is another beautiful, small shrub, evergreen, bearing an acid, edible berry, size and color of the Oregon grape; much sought for by the Indians, and in early days made an excellent wine for the resident Hudson Bay Company employés. The Salal is probably a variety of wintergreen, and seems to thrive best in the deep shades of the forests; has not been cultivated.

The Service Berry, or June Berry, a small tree from six to twelve feet high, we expect to make a good record for in the future. This has been cultivated in other parts of the world and much improved. The Service Berry in the Willamette vally grows in all soils, and at altitudes as high as the snow line, bearing a sweetish, pleasanttasting berry about the size of our largest wild cherry; as yet it has not been cultivated with us or much utilized.

A Black Haw (Crataegus Douglassi), not unlike the Black Haw of the middle West, is sparsely found in some localities.

Our one Filbert, Hazel Nut (Corylus Rostrata), is one of the same species as the imported nuts in our market, and closely approximating in size, flavor, and quality, and grows everywhere in our val

leys, sometimes to the size of a tree ten inches in diameter and from eight to fifteen feet high. No effort is recorded of any attempt to cultivate or improve it.

A kind of Chinquapin Chestnut (Castonopsis Charysophylia) is a symmetrical growing tree, fifty to one hundred feet high, bearing abundantly a small, hardshell chestnut, sweet and edible.

In the work of the Board we fully realize that all has not been done that should have been done; yet we believe, considering the small sum of money expended and the difficulties encountered in inaugurating the work, a very creditable and satisfactory advance has been made, and a good work has been done. It was very discouraging in the beginning to meet the captious opposition or indifference of some of our old orchardists, nurserymen, and fruit-dealers, who were alike ignorant of the insect pests and fungi and the destructive work going on in their own orchards and around them; faithless in the work of the Board, and chafing under the suspicion that their rights as American citizens might be encroached upon, it was often a nice and difficult task to bring them into line to see their own interest in the work of this Board. In this line we believe our best work has been done; so that now, with the exception of an occasional superannuated mossback, we meet with hearty coöperation.

New and improved spraying outfits are coming into general use, and apple and pear-growers realize that to have good, sound merchantable apples and pears they must spray with Paris green or London purple; and that when once started it is a simple and inexpensive process, and the best paying investment on the farm. Mr. Wellhouse of Kansas, one of the largest apple-growers in the United States, reports that with the Wellhouse spraying outfit, with a gearing attachment to the wheel of a two-horse wagon, a boy to drive and two men with spraying nozzles, he sprayed six hundred acres with Paris green at an expense of fifteen cents per acre, and expects to reduce this the next season. The great advance in cheapening and simplifying the preparation of effective insecticides-cheapening and simplifying the appliances for using them-and their general adoption, and the increasing interest in this subject, are matters of encouragement. At your request I attended the convention of fruit-growers held under the auspices of the State Board of Horticulture for California at San José Novomber 15th to 19th inclusive. It is needless to say that I was courteously received and enjoyed the proverbial hospitality of the California horticulturist. This to me was a rare opportunity to learn in the school of the great fruit industries of California and to study the working of the State Board and its very efficient co-workers, the county boards.

Of these and their valuable service to the State of California, I shall have much to say hereafter. I wish here to acknowledge my great indebtedness for much valuable information, and return thanks for courtesies shown me as your representative. To Secretary B. M. Lelong, Quarantine Guardian, and Entomologist Alexander Craw, and Assistant Quarantine Guardian Ehrhorn, I am under obligations for valuable information and special favor.

We can scarcely comprehend the magnitude of the fruit industry of California, now unquestionably the greatest fruit-producing country in the world; with more brains and capital invested than any business in the State, and aggregating a return of $50,000,000 annually. The Santa Clara Valley alone this year shipped of the one product, French Prunes, 1,000 carloads, 20,000,000 pounds; and it is estimated that in four years, when the trees now set come into bearing, this will be increased to 200,000,000 pounds-ten thousand carloads. As the annual consumption of the United States is only 70,000,000 pounds, I leave you and the Santa Clara growers to figure on the problem of distribution and marketing. The apricot, peach, and wine grapes have almost attained alike gigantic proportions, and the orange and raisin grapes perhaps greater. We can have little conception of the interest and enthusiasm in this work. The State Board of Horticulture, County Boards of Horticulture, and State Board of Viticulture are actively engaged in it; and the large sums of money furnished these Boards annually by the State indicate the approval and appreciation of their work. The laws governing these Boards have been carefully studied; and your committee on the revision of our laws has endeavored to embody all their good points in the bill we ask our legislative bodies to

enact.

Respectfully submitted,

J. R. CARDWELL, President and Commissioner for the State at Large.

REPORT OF COMMISSIONER, FIRST DISTRICT.

To the Honorable State Board of Horticulture

GENTLEMEN: Herewith I have the honor to present to you my report of the First Horticultural District, comprising the counties of Multnomah, Clackamas, Yamhill, Washington, Columbia, Clatsop, and Tillamook. You are all aware of the fact that it has been hard work to enlist the coöperation of the fruit-growers in the work of

exterminating fruit pests, but I am pleased to be able to state that from actual observation, and from letters received from various parts of my district, that the majority of the fruit-growers have learned that this Board is their friend and not their enemy, as they had at first erroneously supposed. This is manifest from the very numerous inquiries that I am receiving from them as to how best they may rid their orchards of the pests that infest them. I have always taken great pains to furnish all the required information, either by visiting the orchards thus infected personally, or by sending a proper substitute. The results have been that many old orchards have been dug up bodily and burned root and branch, others thoroughly pruned, sprayed, and plowed, thus giving encouragement to those who had already or were about setting out new orchards; they feeling that the pest-breeding places would not act detrimentally to their new orchards; and that many new orchards are being planted out, is evidenced by the frequent calls at my office for information, what and how to plant, and what varieties to be profitable. All of this is the direct work of this Board; and if persevered in, as I think it will, Oregon will soon be what she is by nature fitted for, the fruit-grower's paradise. The demand for Oregon fruit in the Eastern markets is gradually increasing as their superior qualities are becoming known.

SPRAYING.

A good deal has been said and written on this very important subject; and it appears to me that by this time intelligent men have become convinced that it is just as necessary to spray fruit and fruit trees as it is to plow a field before sowing wheat; and yet we read in our newspapers articles signed by fruit-growers, stating that they had no success in spraying, and claiming that it did not amount to anything. Now such statements are very misleading; and it seems to me that the materials used were either of a poor and worthless quality, or else they ignorantly made use of the wrong remedies. If the latter, there is no shadow of an excuse, as the bulletins of the Board are very explicit, and anyone who can read and who will follow the instructions therein given, must meet with success, as the testimony of hundreds of those who have used them has proven. I do not wish to repeat myself unnecessarily; but in the face of an article lately published in one of our leading papers, from the pen of a well-known writer and fruit-grower, I beg to give my own experience in spraying, especially with the Codlin Moth, using either London purple or Paris green, in the proportions as recommended in our bulletins. Apple and pear trees sprayed four times showed 90% of sound fruit; three times, 70%; twice, 50%,

and those left unsprayed-for experimental purposes-were riddled with worms, some pears and apples having as many as four worms in each one. It is also a well-known fact that the Codlin Moth cannot be successfully battled in any other way than by spraying with poisons to kill the larvæ as soon as it is hatched and begins to feed. Lanterns, under which tin pans with kerosene have been placed, or tin pails filled with molasses and vinegar and hung in the branches of the trees, will catch most any kind of a moth that flies in the night, except the Codlin Moth.

This subject is so important that I hope you will pardon my dwelling on it so strongly, and permit me to quote from a recent report of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station:

"The introduction of the spraying machine in American horticulture marks an event as important as was marked by the advent of the improved cultivators into our agriculture. Before the

latter were introduced, the weeds that infest the soil were fought by the handhoe, but now a single team does the work of many men. In the same way until recently various laborious and partially effective methods were used in fighting noxious insects and destructive fungi; but now many foes of both these classes are fought on a large scale by the forcepump and spray-nozzle; and every season adds others to the list of those against which this method may be successfully used. With a large class of farmers and fruit-growers spraying has become a recognized part of the season's operation, and therein lies the chief promise of this method. When the belief becomes general that it is as important to save a crop from destruction by its foes as it is to produce it; that fighting noxious insects must take its place as a farm process by the side of that of fighting noxious weeds; that the parasitic plants which absorb the vitality of the leaf are as dangerous to the crop as the plants which dispute with it for the possession of the soil; and when, along with this recognition, there is placed before the farming and fruit-growing community a cheap and wholesome method of preventing the injuries of these organisms, then the vast annual loss. now suffered because of insects and fungi will be very greatly lessened."

This is only one of the many successful trials of the various United States experimental stations, and shows that spraying is a success; but, as before stated, must be persevered in, in order to have good, clean marketable fruit. It is very gratifying to be able to report that the nurserymen in my district (and no doubt they have done the same in other districts) have done a great deal of work in cleaning up their nurseries by spraying and washing against the Woolly Aphis and San José Scale; and I know from per