The Tomato Whisperer of the Columbia Valley

Farmers of the Columbia river valley who have tried year after year to raise tomatoes but without success will undoubtedly appreciate the following experience as told by G. H. Mottinger, of Mottinger. For more than 20 years Mr. Mottinger fought a losing fight with so-called blight. Now he raises tomatoes every year and great big good ones. He tells of his experiments in the following article written for the Courier-Reporter: My experiments and experiences with tomato culture in eastern Washington covers a period of 24 years. My first experience was on Switzler's Island in the Columbia river 14 miles below Wallula. There I raised my first tomato plants in the west—set them out in silty soil and promptly observed them blight one by one until the last one succumbed just as the fruits were forming. I believe the cause of the so-called blight is not that it is a disease, but simply a mechanical condition of the soil whereby it packs so tightly around the roots of the plants that it smothers them. The soil in the arid portions of eastern Washington and Oregon is of a volcanic ash and a silt, and the particles of soil are exceedingly fine and small. Where there is no humus or other larger substances in the soil, it packs so closely together that it is nearly entirely impervious to air, and the roots must have air or they die. The honor of raising the first vines that did not blight and that bore fruit belongs to my wife. She selected a small piece of the worst, poorest white alkaline soil we have on the ranch near the house, and proceeded to make her a small garden. She had the boy wheel in loads and loads of old weather-beaten, leached-out hen manure and thoroughly incorporated it with the soil. It had no virtue, but as a mechanical agent it was just right. The garden was a success, tomatoes and all, and now I believe the problem is solved.