405 TRANSACTIONS OF THE RICHLAND 



in cultivation does not heal readily and sometimes kills it, and 

 often becomes a permanent injury. The apples after the blos- 

 soms fall are little larger than a grain of wheat, and make little 

 growth for two weeks. They seem to be waiting for a frost and 

 even a chill often takes off nearly the whole stand and the rest 

 of them keep falling the whole season. I hear of only one 

 orchard of this variety that is considered profitable in this vicin- 

 ity. We want at least one other kind of winter apple for this 

 region. Our success will depend upon planting large orchards 

 of the three or four varieties that do best here, and those who 

 have planted whole fields of Ben Davis have had the best success 

 of any hitherto. 



My orchard brought me fifty dollars per acre net this year and 

 would have brought three times as much if it had all been Ben 

 Davis. Several hundreds of acres of apple orchards have been 

 planted this year in Richland county, and the question is being 

 asked whether we shall not over-do the business? I think not. 

 The apple producing region is limited. The old orchards in the 

 north and east are fast disappearing and they can never compete 

 with us again. 



Except in the strip of land that is protected by the temperature 

 and fogs of the great lakes, and most of that will be used for 

 fruits other than apples, we shall have a country two hundred 

 miles wide to north of us and one still wider to the south that 

 can be supplied with apples from the great apple belt in which 

 we live more easily than from any other source. 



Again, there are many competing lines of railroads between 

 this region and the ports on the lakes, from which apples are 

 already being shipped direct to Liverpool and other cities in 

 Europe. The freight from Detroit to Liverpool for barrelled 

 apples is low and it will always cost less to transport a barrel of 

 apples than it will to carry a barrel of flour. If Southern Illi- 

 nois had a million barrels of apples they could be laid down in 

 Europe at fifty cents per barrel and perhaps a little less. 



Again, the high color of our red apples is quite superior to 

 apples grown in any other region of which I have any knowl- 

 edge, and I have observed the color of apples from Maine to 

 Michigan. Even the man who is surest that there is nothing in 

 color goes to the store and buys the red apples himself. High 

 color will always be an element of value. 



