pness.

SORTING AND GRADING

After the walnuts are gathered, washed, dried and stored for a week or
so to test the correctness of their drying, they are ready to be graded
by passing over a sized screen. The choicest ones will sell at top
market prices, and the culls a little under. The Prince grove harvest is
never graded, as he finds ready sale at highest prices for the entire
output just as it runs after sorting out the few imperfect nuts.

PACKING AND SHIPPING

They are next put into pound cartons, or 50-pound bags, common gunny
sacks, ready for the market.

Not being perishable none are lost in shipping or by keeping. Walnuts
from Oregon groves have been kept two years, tasting as sweet and fresh
as those in their first season. Long hauls are not objectionable, as the
rough handling is not injurious to the well-sealed varieties grown in
Oregon. In this they have an advantage over fruit.

WALNUT YIELD PER ACRE

While it is generally found that seedling trees properly treated come
into bearing the eighth year, this crop is usually light, doubling each
successive season for seven or eight years. From then on there is a
steady increase in crop and hardiness for many years. Often trees in
Oregon bear in their sixth year; while there are instances on record of
trees set out in February bearing the following autumn. This is no
criterion, however, merely an instance illustrating the unusual richness
of Oregon soil, and its perfect adaptability to walnut culture.

Thirty-five acres on the Prince place yielded at twelve years, twelve
tons of fine nuts, which were sold at 18 and 20 cents a pound, two cents
above the market price, making an average of $125 per acre. Another
grove of two acres yielded in their ninth year two tons, or a ton to the
acre, netting the owner $360 an acre.

Mr. A. A. Quarnberg's eleven-year-old trees averaged twenty-five pounds
each. Mr. Henry J. Biddle's ten and twelve-year-old trees averaged
thirty pounds each. One hundred fifty dollars an acre from
twelve-year-old trees is a conservative estimate, though some groves not
cultivated may fall under that figure, while others in a high state of
cultivation will almost double it.

THE WALNUT MARKET

The very fact that in 1907 Oregon-grown walnuts commanded several cents
a pound higher price than those grown elsewhere indicates their market
value. When ordinary nuts sold for 12 and 16 cents a pound Oregon nuts