GERVAIS, Ore. — Though Pearmine Farms is approaching its 100th year in the cherry business, evidence of a much deeper history may be found all over its 900 acres.

Pearmine Farms, near Gervais, Ore., is on a portion of the Joseph Gervais Donation Land Claim of 1850. Gervais came to the Oregon Territory in 1812 and settled the farm around 1830, growing wheat and apples.

The farm is now in the fourth-generation hands of Molly Pearmine McCargar and her brother, Ernie.

“Cherries are a significant part of what we grow,” Molly McCargar said. “Our farm has changed significantly in the last 10 years; we’ve reduced the vegetables we grow and increased our use of technology while cherries have been a part of our farm practically forever.

“One of the first things my brother did when he graduated from college was to convince Dad that we needed GPS on the farm,” McCargar said. “We started adapting to some newer technologies in 2009 and now, other than the really old tractors, everything’s got GPS.”

In addition to 40 acres of cherries, Pearmine Farms grows squash, field corn and cauliflower, some of which are grown on 100 acres of certified organic ground.

In 2014, they planted 130 acres of hops.

One thing that never changes in farming is its unpredictability.

“Last year Mother Nature killed us; we only ended up harvesting about 300,000 pounds of cherries where the year prior the orchards produced 650,000 pounds,” McCargar said.

Though Washington state produces more cherries than the Willamette Valley, there was a time when the valley’s orchards were so successful that in 1907 the Pacific Coast Association of Nurserymen dubbed Salem the “Cherry City of the World,” saying it contained “the greatest and finest display of cherries known in history.”

These days you’re more likely to see a Pearmine cherry atop an ice cream sundae than in the produce department, she said. Most valley cherries go for processing because the area just can’t produce the huge cherries that fresh market consumers demand. These come from the orchards to the north.

Among the pollinators in the Pearmine orchards of Royal Ann, Corum, Lapins and Sweetheart is a variety the family has raised since McCargar’s great-grandfather Les Pearmine Sr. discovered it in one of his orchards.

“I keep saying I’m going to do the genetic research on it, but the family just calls it Viola after my grandmother,” McCargar said.

“It’s really fascinating to look along the riverbank and see wild apples that have somehow managed to survive for generations,” McCargar said. “Through research my dad has done, he was able to put the GPS coordinates into one of our tractors and drive right out to where the original land claim was, and that’s pretty amazing.”

McCargar’s community and industry involvement is evident in how she spends her “free” time. She is on the boards of Farmers Ending Hunger, Oregon AgLink, REAL Oregon and is part of Oregon Farm Bureau’s Labor Advisory Committee.

Additionally, McCargar is in her 11th year as a county adviser for the Marion County Farm Service Agency and, at nearby Gervais High School, is the varsity volleyball coach and assistant varsity basketball coach.

She and her husband, Lindsay McCargar, have four daughters.