A Fortune in Strawberries: The Grower Who Says Thurston County Is Sleeping on Its Own Soil

Olympia, which is acknowledged to be one of the foremost shipping points for fruit in the state of Washington, has closed the season with larger shipments and better prices than ever. Points all along the Sound have been supplied with the luscious products of Thurston county's orchards. Plums this year have not been quite so plentiful, but the decrease in this direction has been overbalanced by other varieties of fruit. Steamer loads of apples, pears and prunes have been shipped from Percival's dock, and commission merchants from Tacoma, Seattle and down-sound points have vied with each other to secure the crops at a good figure.

It is evident from conversation, however, that the farmers and fruit raisers do not realize, even to a small extent, the volume of business that could be centered in Thurston county were more attention paid to the business. As it is, the prolific soil yields abundance, while those who are owners of orchards do little more than to pick the fruit.

TALK WITH A FRUIT RAISER.

In speaking on this matter, George B. Hartman, who can speak from years of experience, says:

"If the fruit growers in the eastern and middle states neglected their trees and shrubbery as they do in Thurston county the trees would simply die and they would have no fruit at all. Thurston county, as well as the state of Washington generally, is susceptible of wonderful possibilities. Apple, pear, plum and prune orchards in Olympia and Thurston county that are thirty and forty years old and have had no attention are loaded down with choice fruit every year, and there has never been a failure.

With attention to the proper pruning of trees and cutting down or grafting the poorer kinds of fruit and replacing with good varieties," continued Mr. Hartman, "the demand will be greater and the prices better, and there is no telling what the yield and quality would be with cultivation. For varieties to put on the market here or elsewhere, I would advise the planting of apples such as the Baldwin, Spitzenberg, King of Tompkins County, Gravenstein, Red Astrachan, Newtown, Pippin, Greening, Alexander, Duchess of Oldenberg, Wealthy, Gideon and Peter, also the Bellflower and Red Detroit.

And when we can fill the market with fruit of this kind there will be no need of sending to Oregon to supply the demand in any of the markets of the Sound country, besides protecting and upholding the good quality of the fruit produced. I have never found any wormy apples, pears, peaches or plums in Thurston county, and if the people will take the raising of fruit to heart so that we are not obliged to ship Oregon or California apples, pears and plums here, we never will be troubled with these pests. One hundred boxes of nicely colored apples of fine flavor are worth more than 300 boxes of poor ones, such as we see going into the market from other points.

It is to be regretted that Thurston county did not make a fruit exhibit at the Tacoma exposition. The finest strawberries, blackberries and raspberries I ever saw in my life were produced here this season, and all other small fruits that could not be surpassed anywhere. And if the county of Thurston cannot throw the Placer county car in the shade then I don't know anything about this business. There is a fortune for some one in strawberries alone at Olympia. Last season the producer received 10 cents per box and then the demand was not half supplied. One acre of strawberries will yield 7,000 quart boxes if properly cultivated.

With one acre of blackberries and raspberries a family has a good living. My advice to young men is to stop looking for a soft job and go to raising fruit.

I have been in fruit orchards pretty nearly all my days in Ohio and Indiana and was one of the first to successfully raise apples, pears, plums and cherries and small fruits in the Territory of Montana, but Washington throws them all in the shade and will get in ahead at Chicago if her people will it so. We have the soil and the climate and if we are not the banner state we ought to be."