The Mosquito Netting Orchardist
A clever gardener in Lynden manages to defy the seasons and local birds, producing fresh cherries long after the neighbors' trees were picked clean.
While at Lynden yesterday, the Post-Intelligencer man saw in the orchard of Mrs. M. Hawley a cherry tree laden with ripe and ripening fruit. Nearly two months ago the last of this fruit was gathered from the trees of her neighbors, but she will enjoy her cherries until the middle of this month. Mrs. Hawley had two types of early and late varieties, the names of which she did not know, but when the fruit on the early tree began to ripen she made a hood of mosquito netting, which she stretched entirely over it. She left the hood on until the late fruit began to ripen and then transferred it to that tree, where it has remained until the present time, thus mellowing the light and keeping off the birds and enabling the fruit to ripen slowly. There is now dead ripe, half ripe and green fruit still upon the tree, which is the wonder of the neighborhood.
“She made a hood of mosquito netting, which she stretched entirely over it... enabling the fruit to ripen slowly.”
Long before modern greenhouse technology or global supply chains, local innovation like Mrs. Hawley's mosquito-netting hood was how families extended the harvest. This story captures the spirit of self-sufficiency that defined early agricultural settlements in Washington.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.