Page 8 



BETTER FRUIT 



August 



The Apple as a Farm Product — History and Present Status 



(Continued from July edition) 



CHAPTER FIVE 

 HOW MANY APPLES— OVERPRO- 

 DUCTION 



THE writer has been told on many 

 occasions by various good busi- 

 ness men, some of whom were 

 farmers, to "keep out of the apple game 

 — there will be overproduction." In 

 the general sense that this term is taken 

 it would seem from all points of view 

 that this is indeed to he the case. How- 

 ever, without explanation, the admis- 

 sion of overproduction is sure to be 

 misleading, and when it comes to the 

 blanket advice to keep out of the apple 

 game, it is indeed another question 

 entirely. We will, therefore, at this 

 point (lualify and define this overpro- 

 duction. 



First, as to the subject of cycles of 

 prices and plantings. G. F. Warren, in 

 "Farm Management," says: "Man is so 

 constituted that he is too likely to think 

 that the present conditions are to con- 

 tinue. If we have a wet year or two. 

 we think that it will always be wet; if 

 good prices, these are to remain for- 

 ever. In the case of prices, it is the 

 very feeling of certainty that present 

 conditions are to continue that makes 

 it impossible for them to do so." 

 Farmers, to some degree, and near- 

 farmers to a much more marked degree, 

 are prone, in determining what crops 

 and animals to produce, to select those 

 which have been high for the last year 

 or two. The fallacy of this appears 

 with consideration of price range over 

 a considerable period, showing tempo- 

 rary inclines and declines that have no 

 real indicative value. Further, it must 

 be considered in regard to the total 

 amount produced, that the weather for 

 any particular year is almost as im- 

 portant as the acreage at that time. 

 The annual crop tends to be much less 

 out of adjustment to the demand than 

 longer time crops for obvious reasons. 

 To quote Professor Warren again: "The 

 longer the time required to grow a 

 product, the worse the jieriods of over 

 and under-production become." Curves 

 have been constructed to show the cy- 

 clic nature of prices with several prod- 

 ucts, and the result is very striking. 

 The period for hogs is three years of 

 high prices and three years at low — a 

 six-year cycle — and graphed prices 

 since 1867 show true cycles which only 

 vary occasionally with a very large 

 corn crop, etc. The writer believes 

 Professor Warren to be the most logical 

 thinker of prominence in agriculture 

 today, and as to the cyclic nature of 

 farm production, there can hardly be 

 any question, but the case for each indi- 



Wanted 



A position as superin- 

 tendent or manager of 

 a fruit farm by a grad- 

 uate In horticulture from Kansas Agricul- 

 tural College. Was raised on a farm and 

 since graduating from college have spent 

 three years In orchard work as foreman 

 and manager. Can furnish best of recom- 

 mendations. WM. R. CUUKY, Dixon, Mo. 



By A. Millaid, .Ir., Hood River, Oregon. 



vidual or for each community is 

 affected bv many other factors. 



From 1854 to 18(54, apple prices were 

 high, and from 186.i to 1874 they were 

 very high, and continued at about this 

 level until 1878, when the down slope 

 of the curve was reached. Prices 

 dropped quite steadily, more rapidly at 

 first, till 180(5, the year of the famous 

 bumper apple crop. Since 1896, the 

 prices have been rising steadily till the 

 present. 1912 was a bad year, and 

 1914 has been a very bad year, and it 

 rather appears that the approach of the 

 down turn is at hand. This should be 

 well under way about 1920, according 

 to the cvcle hvpothesis. (See Appendix, 

 Table 3i.) 



In Parma Township, Monroe County, 

 New York, in 1912, 5.7 per cent of the 

 apple trees were planted between 1859 

 and 1878, and only 11 per cent from 

 1879 to 19n.S, while 21 per cent were 

 planted in the five years 1904 to 1908. 

 (M. C. Rurritt, Thesis, Cornell Univer- 

 sity Library.) In 1908, 6 per cent of 

 the apple crop of this country was 

 borne on trees planted since 1878, and 

 since practically no trees were planted 

 after this period till 1903, we may ex- 

 pect high iirices in some years until the 

 recent plantings fully afl'ect production, 

 and then large crops and low prices 

 should prevail for a period of about 

 twenty years. Professor Warren esti- 

 mates that the plantings will affect 

 prices about 1920 or 1925, but this esti- 

 mate was made before the size of the 

 last three crops, 1912, 1913 and 1914, 

 and of these three, the first and last 

 certainly point to an earlier Waterloo 

 than Professor Warren anticipated. 



The writer is convinced of the gen- 

 eral soundness of the overproduction 

 bugaboo in apples, but, at the same 

 time, he fails to see this as complete 

 discouragement to the present, or even 

 the prospective apple grower. We 

 .should remember that weather is al- 

 most as potent a factor in the produc- 

 tion of a given year as is the bearing 

 acreage; farmers expect good and bad 

 years with any crop, and most so with 

 a biennial crop. A very progressive 

 North Pacific grower has told the wri- 

 ter that he could do very well on a 

 1913 vear once in three of four years, 

 and 1913 was only a fair to good year 

 for Western apples. A good many men 

 will engage in the production of apples 

 and they will make some sort of profit 

 or they would cease to raise the fruit 

 until tile scarcity had brought the price 

 up to a point where they could produce 

 at a profit. The question for each 

 grower and each community is: ^^TlO 

 is going to raise the apples'? They must 

 be raised, 100,000,000 to 300,000,000 

 bushels a year, and competition of a 

 very harsh sort will decide. 



We have, above, covered in a way 

 the question of high or low prices to 

 come, but it will be well to attempt 

 to settle this question from a slightly 

 different angle. The following table 

 inav prove enlightening in the question 



of comparative high prices of apples. 

 It will be noted that apples have in- 

 creased in price in nothing like propor- 

 tion to other staple food products. 



TABLE VII. — COMPARATIVE IN'CREASE IN 



PRICE OF APPLES AND 



OTHER CROPS 



Apples 9..=i% I Oals .37.7% 



Cotton 64.1% 1 Potatoes 28.2% 



Corn 41.9%, I Wheat 36.5% 



Hay 33.4% I 



Prices must be higher or lower; they 

 cannot remain at a medium level under 

 the pressure of the capital involved. 

 This capital is pretty well lost unless 

 some return is obtained for apples, and 

 it stands to reason that this capital will 

 produce apples at a very low return 

 rather than to mark itself out as a dead 

 loss. We can start with the perfectly 

 fair assumption of the existence at pres- 

 ent and of the future "coming in" of 

 fui'ther supply of more than enough 

 trees to meet the demand for apples in 

 any but small-crop years. As to the 

 alternatives of high and low prices— if 

 prices should show any prospect of be- 

 ing good, the farmers will crop (spray, 

 etc.) more than enough apples to sup- 

 ply the demand at high prices, and the 

 prices consequently will drop. Apples 

 will be marketed as long as the farmer 

 can get anything over his total cost of 

 production, and in bad years fruit will 

 be marketed below the cost of produc- 

 tion, for once raised, the farmer must 

 get what he can for his product. We 

 have then a pressure of supply which 

 will assure against higher than bare 

 profit market prices in normal years. 

 This pressure of supply will accom- 

 plish much in the lowering of the cost 

 of production, considering production 

 as taking the fruit clear to the con- 

 sumer. Economic necessity, and this 

 alone, may and doubtless will, alter the 

 machinery of distribution, and here 

 are involved several important factors 

 which vitally affect our future prices. 

 The chief of these is increased con- 

 sumption with lower prices. This sub- 

 ject is best discussed elsewhere. It is 

 safe to say that producers in general 

 will receive in normal years what they 

 now consider bad apple year prices, 

 and that the man who eats apples will 

 pav less for them. 



What, then, is to be the fate of the 

 existing plantings of apples? I'nfor- 

 tunately, just the sort of statistics on 

 plantings which would be most useful 

 in this discussion, are not available. 

 Figures on bearing and non-bearing 

 plantings over a long period of years, 

 and figures on annual plantings would 

 do much to clear up this matter. How- 

 ever, census figures and figures from 

 other sources can be of the greatest 

 assistance if studied intelligently, and 

 we will, below, consider several tables 

 on plantings and i)roduction. 



The following figures on the produc- 

 tion of apples since 1896 are the best 

 that the writer knows of. The figures 

 are rather conservative, generally be- 

 low census or government figures, and 



Continued on page 27 



