His lan

tion I saw reaches that condition I shall be surprised." guage was even more emphatic than the words I have put on paper. Here is the new evil leaven working again. Trees planted at heavy expense under the baneful stimulus of false hopes and false promises of phenomenal profits, and left to themselves to become gnarled, misshappen, pest-breeding trunks, as the light of information and observation dispelled the mists of greed and unfounded hopes.

These are unpleasant truths and may seem like discouraging ones. Perhaps they really are, and I hope they will so prove to be to the shiftless and purposeless tree planter. The fruit-growing field will be well rid of them and their aboreal abortions. The sooner the ignis fatuus, which lured them to a bad beginning, beckons them to fresh fields of useless endeavor, the better it will be those who, unlike them, are not cumberers of the ground.

With all its failures, neglects, and mistakes, the history of fruitgrowing in the Northwest, its manifold successes and triumphs, its splendid achievements and unsurpassed displays at State and county fairs, at the great Expositions at Philadelphia, at New Orleans, at Portland, and Tacoma, are fresh in the minds of tens of thousands of men and women. There is no trouble about the soil and climate; and there really is no trouble about the markets. There is always room on top. When it is remembered that the land of big red apples imported carloads of the Ben Davis variety last year, that our fruit dealers are making preparations to raid Arkansas orchards for a supply to meet the demands created by a light yield for this year, a decent, reasonable, honorable State pride ought to set every fruit-grower in the Northwest to pruning his trees and fighting all manner of pests, getting ready for the markets which await good fruits all over this land.

* *

But let no man be deceived and suppose that the Northwest is going to have a walk-over in the great race for equality in the markets of the world, admitting as true even the most that can be said in favor of the soil and climate of this region. The writer on the subject of "Horticulture Gaining Ground," already quoted, says: "Immense developments are going forward on this line, not only in California, Oregon, and Washington, but in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and many other States of the farthest West. Arkansas and Missouri are producing great quantities of the finest apples, while Colorado is rapidly coming to the front in horticultural pursuits." In addition to Australia, South Africa is becoming a competitor in deciduous and citrus fruits of California. But looked at from an intelligent standpoint there is nothing alarming in all this to the energetic, conscientious horticulturist. These things do not narrow, but rather widen the horizon of his outlook.

There are many cognate branches of this subject, those of transportation, coöperation, etc., which remain to be touched upon, and may do so in a future article.

But one fact stands out more prominently than all others, and that is that the Northwest fruit-grower may not hold his own, much less conquer new fields and hold them in permanent and profitable occupancy unless he takes "Excelsior" as his motto, and lives up to it, and shows himself and the product of his orchard the equal of the best if not the first among equals; but for the necessity of striving to reach this point which makes itself so disagreeably apparent in Northwest orchard and market I should not have written these articles. One thing is certain, if I have not pointed out the exact location of profitable "Markets for Northwest Fruits," I have at least traced the profile of the only feasible, the only possibly practicable road to them.

APPENDIX.

Containing Proceedings of Fruit-Growers' Convention, held at

SALEM, OREGON, APRIL 18 and 19, 1893.

PRESIDENT H. W. COTTLE'S ADDRESS.

In pursuance of a custom among_horticultural societies, and by the request of your Committee on Programme, who, unmindful of the fact that there are in our Society older and more able horticulturists, placed me upon the programme, it becomes my duty, as your President, to deliver an address, or rather to present a few thoughts pertaining to the cultivation of fruits, and of such other matters as are of interest to the Society and its members.

The planting and growing of fruit is a grand, noble, elevating employment. In this world we judge of things by comparison. The man who plants wheat, reaps his crop, and ships it with a part of the fertility of his farm. The transaction is ended. The man and his pocket-book are but little, if any, better for it. The farm has lost a part of its fertility. The man who plants and cultivates successfully an orchard plants something that will prove a joy and a pleasure to himself and others while he lives, and also to those that come after him.

A year ago we met with bright anticipations of a bountiful fruit harvest, but which were only partly realized, the fruit being injured by cold late rains at the time the trees were in blossom. Although our crop was light, yet the year was not without its benefit in the lessons learned as to the proper modes and manner of planting, cultivating, and spraying our trees; and also in the further fact that owing to the destruction of a considerable portion of our fruit, our trees rested, as it were, during the year, and today, laden with blossoms, bid fair to give us one of the most bountiful crops ever gathered in this State.

The lessons of the past year, if rightly learned, place us in a position to more successfully suppress the various fungus diseases of our fruit, as well as the injurious insects.

It has been demonstrated beyond a question that the Scab on the apple and pear can be almost entirely suppressed, and a very large proportion of our apples rendered free from the Codlin Moth or Apple Worm; and hence, that fruit can be grown and put upon the markets here that has no superior and few equals.

This, taken in connection with the fact that during the past few years thousands of acres of new orchards have been planted in this