100 years ago in Spokane: Orchardists asked to keep ‘wormy apples’ out of river; miners strike for 8-hour day

The district horticultural inspector was pleading with orchardists to “keep your wormy apples out of the Spokane River,” the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported.

Some growers were dumping all of their worm-eaten fruit in the river. The apples and accompanying worms would then float down the river and infest downstream farms.

“Many believe that the water will drown the worms, but after floating awhile the apples drift ashore,” said the inspector.

He suggested a number of better methods of getting rid of the worms, “one being to cook them and feed them to the hogs.”

He also suggested that orchardists could pile up some of their pruned wood, make a bonfire and toss the wormy apples in.

From the labor beat: “Not one ounce of lead” was being produced in the vast majority of the Coeur d’Alene district mines, and “the entire revenue stream of the section is wholly obliterated.”

The miner’s strike continued to paralyze the Mullan-Burke section and the Nine Mile section.

Strikers were demanding a “collar to collar” eight-hour day, meaning eight hours from the time of entering the mine entrance to leaving.

From the arborist beat: Spokane park superintendent John W. Duncan complained that “tree butchers … calling themselves experts” were maiming Spokane’s street trees.

They “ruthlessly chop off the tree tops to protect wires.” He advocated that the park board take over the care of all street trees. The street trees were, after all, city property.