Here’s a cherry orchard just south of The Dalles, at the western terminus of the Oregon Trail, looking west to the Mount Hood Volcano.

The rounded crests of these glacial flood hills are your clue that they were sculpted by wind. You can grow fruit here, as the soil is rich and the sun is warm, but if you do, you’ll want to get it out of the wind.

For that, poplars help, but that’s just an improvised stopgap, really.

Notice all the missing trees in this cherry orchard, though. That’s not a sign of wind but of a barely-sustainable enterprise, even though these cherries are close to the earliest on the market and should command a premium price. What a different place it would be if it had not been conquered by an agricultural people!