The Apple Situation in the United States. 97 



and more especially apples. As I happen to know something about the 

 conditions there, I may be pardoned for speaking specifiically: Take 

 Alaska, with its constantly increasing demands for apples and other 

 fruits. It will take hundreds of years ,at the present rate, to develop 

 Alaska; but the partial development, as at present, furnishes a market 

 for apples; and with Alaskans, it is not a matter of price, for they buy 

 extravagantly and recklessly, and increasing shipping facilities will 

 cause a constant increase in demand. The constantly increasing Pa- 

 cific ocean traffic will create a demand that apple growers are not and 

 will not be ready for. But you may say that this market is far from 

 us and that others are in better position to supply their demands. 

 Admit that this is true, and then turn our eyes to the North, and what 

 do we see there? A vast country — whose vastness is almost beyond 

 our comprehension; and we see people going there by the thousands 

 and tens of thousands, from America, from Europe, and, in fact, from 

 almost all the countries of the world, and the rich lands and enormous 

 crops will enable those people to buy; and we must supply them or 

 they must go without apples to eat. It is true that we have no direct 

 means of reaching them; for lines of transportation are indirect, and 

 now overtaxed to convey people and their effects to this new land of 

 the North, and their products, new as the country is, to market; and 

 while their energies have been, and for a time will be, directed to im- 

 proving lands and raising grain, yet in the near future there will be a 

 market in the Northland that will not be supplied, unless apple growers 

 properly consider the situation and get strenuous. It may be that your 

 neighbor on the north will produce enough apples for their own use, 

 but it will take many years to do this, while North Dakota and Canada 

 will not even make a serious attempt to do this. Then there are the 

 mines, our growing towns and cities, and our diversified industries 

 constantly add to the classes who are consumers and not producers; 

 so that the prospects are that those who produce things from Mother 

 Earth will have greater rewards in the future than they have had in 

 the past. 



It is true that there are more in the way of drawbacks now than 

 years ago, but there are better means of contending with adverse cir- 

 cumstances and conditions; but the very fact that conditions are less 

 favorable, will make success for the ignorant or careless doubtful, if 

 not impossible; while intelligent application will get better returns and 

 greater rewards. So, it is safe to assume that there are brighter pros- 

 pects ahead, for intelligent, industrious apple growers, while the care- 

 less and slip-shod grower will soon be eliminated, leaving the entire 

 field for those who are more worthy of success. 



In past years the know how, or the effort to learn how, has en- 



