286 



Bulletin 262. 



number of any county in the State. In 1900, this number was reduced 

 to 924,086, which was still considerable above that of any other county 

 in New York. A more recent census would undoubtedly show still 

 greater reduction in the number of trees. With respect to yields for 

 the year 1889, Niagara ranked second, producing 623,204 bushels 

 of apples, and was exceeded only by Wayne County. For the year 

 1899, Niagara produced 1,421,796 bushels and still ranked second, being 

 exceeded only by Monroe with an excess of 14,595 bushels. 



Fig. 29. — An old story: An example of an orchard in which the trees are crowding 



each other and are now " fighting it out " 



Area in apples. — The entire area of the county comprises 522 square 

 miles, or 334,080 acres, with an average of 46 acres in apples to the 

 square mile. Furthermore, since there are 924,086 trees in the county, 

 and since the average number of trees per acre is 38.2 it follows that 

 there are about 24,190 acres in apples. This means that 7.2 per cent 

 of the area of the county is planted to apple orchards. About three- 

 fourths of the orchards are in the northern half of the county. More 

 complete surveys were made in the lake-shore districts than elsewhere, 

 although representative districts of the entire county were surveyed. 



