^68 



HORTICULTURE 



December 11, 1909 



THE APPLE GROWING INDUSTRY. 



Modern conditions and the increasing 

 demands for clean fruit of color, size 

 and flavor have made apple-growing a 

 highly profitable industry in the North- 

 west, as it should be throughout New 

 England, and there are many, includ- 

 ing the foremost pomologists, who be- 

 lieve that in three years the products 

 of the commercial orchards in Wash- 

 ington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana 

 ■will exceed in value the total yields 

 of the bonanza grain fields in these 

 states. Indeed, the fruit areas are be- 

 ing extended so rapidly that computa- 

 -tion of the probable crop in 1915 is 

 bewildering because of its enormity; 

 but there is room in the apple belts 

 of the United States and Canada for 

 armies of groweis, opportunities to 

 malie millions of thousands of dollars, 

 to establish pleasant homes, to develop 

 horticulture and to have a part in the 

 growth and progress of the country. 



Probably it is In this that the Na- 

 tional apple show, now an annual in- 

 stitution at Spokane, Wash., is of the 

 greatest educational value to the grow- 

 er and the prospective orchardist. The 

 primary purpose of the exposition is 

 an educational one, even though that 

 object be lost sight of for the moment 

 by the dazzled spectator at the mon- 

 strous piles of apples; but it is hazard- 

 ing uo guess to say that the grower 

 has that primary purpose steadily in 

 his mind as he compares and contrasts 

 his fruit with the neighboring exhibits. 



Lessons peculiarly of inteiest to the 

 growers in America are taught in 

 showing the possibilities of intensive 

 cultivation, and this may be shared 

 by orchardists in all parts of the con- 

 tinent and the world, for the reason 

 that the Spokane exposition is neither 

 insular nor sectional. People of every 

 state, territory and province in Amer- 

 ica and every countiy in tlie world are 

 Interested in the supply of food, fruit 

 and material for the manufacturing in- 

 dustries of every other aistnci, and 

 the value of the lessons in comparisons 

 cannot be over-estimated. 



The various methods of selection and 

 pack can be balanced at an exhibition 

 devoted exclusively to apples as at no 

 other exposition. Whether complacent- 

 ly secure in the belief that his exhibit 

 doea not suffer from comparison or is 

 suddenly upset in a cherished notion 

 of ciiltivation or pack, the grower is 

 there to study the methods of otheis. 

 While this feature, in a measure, is 

 attendant at the various state and 

 county fairs, it is most peculiarly pat- 

 ent in the apple show. There Is a 

 good reason: It is not possible at an 

 exposition of the products of any state 

 to show why a certain fruit or other 

 agricultural product of that district is 

 better than its neighbor by the process 

 of multiplication of exhibits. There is 

 not the space, there are not the exhibi- 

 tors in sufficient numbers and there is 

 not the centralized motive. 



No more convincing argument in be- 

 half of the excellence of the products 

 of apple orchards in the Northwest has 

 yet been presented than that put forth 

 by the handlers of fruit in the United 

 States and Europe during and since the 

 first apple show. They were quick to 

 see the possibilities of high grade 

 apples in eastern and foreign markets 

 and they snapped up every offering of 

 fruit at top prices. It is not out of 



place to say there was a ready mar- 

 ket for 5000 cars of northwestern apples 

 over the output of the. orchards this 

 season. The crop is reduced in the 

 Northwest this season, but the growers 

 will receive more money for their 

 apples than ever before in the history 

 of the industry. 



There were periods in the history 

 of apple growing in America when 

 the fruit was almost a drug on the 

 market. That was before orchards 

 became an established industry in the 

 Northwest. Eastern farmers then did 

 not have to grow apples; in fact; all 

 they did was to pick them from the 

 trees and dump them into barrels. 

 Time worked changes, and the ap- 

 ples of Washington and'Oregon gradu- 

 ally found their way eastward. They 

 created a market for themselves, lim- 

 ited as it was, and the growers began 

 to extend their orchards, and make 

 a business of apple culture. 



Conditions developed the fact that 

 a much better apple could be grown 

 by intelligent cultivation than by the 

 haphazard method of letting the trees 

 care for themselves. The products 

 of the orchards of the Northwest were 

 received with favor not only at home, 

 but also abroad, and when the people 

 found the better apple, they were no 

 longer satisfied with the inferior 

 fruit. They demanded the best, and, 

 in many instances, the growers were 

 not prepared to supply the new stan- 

 dard. They were not equal to the 

 task of improving their orchards; 

 they permitted their trees to run 

 down, and, as a result the fruit be- 

 came so unattractive that it could not 

 be sold, and thus the position of su- 

 premacy gradually slipped away. 



Apples were so plentiful and cheap 

 in the New England and other east- 

 ern states, from 1895 to 1897 and in 

 1S99 and 1900 that farmers with or- 

 chards would not invest money in 

 what appeared to them to be an un- 

 profitable crop, and they gave little 

 or no attention to the gradually 

 changing conditions. Those were 

 the days when apples brought from 

 40 cents to a dollar a barrel. The 

 higher figure was paid for fruit then 

 graded as fancy. Then there was im- 

 provement in the appearance and tex- 

 ture of the fruit and the demand be- 

 came stronger and soon there were 

 no cheap apples. The crops of east- 

 ern orchards were not sufficient to 

 supply the demand, and growers in 

 the western states found it profitable 

 to ship their apples thousands of 

 miles to the markets once controlled 

 almost exclusively by growers in the 

 New England states. 



There has been an awakening in 

 the east, more especially throughout 

 New England, and there are many 

 who believe that the time is not far 

 distant when the orchard districts 

 in Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode 

 Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut 

 and Vermont will again become pro- 

 minent factors in the industry. East- 

 ern growers admit that their western 

 brethren have outstripped them by 

 the adoption of modern methods in 

 cultivation and sending clean and at- 

 tractive fruit, honestly packed and 

 guaranteed as to condition and qual- 

 ity, to the markets, and they will pro- 

 fit by following the example in grow- 

 ing cleaner and better fruit and more 

 of it. This is also true in other east- 

 ern, middleWestern and southern 



states, where apple culture Is being 

 taken up as an Industry. There is 

 room enough for all. The apple mar- 

 ket is world-wide and overproduction 

 is out of question now and will be 

 for generations to come. 



AUGUST WOLF. 



CONTROLLING THE SAN JOSE 

 SCALE. 



A Professor of Clark University 

 (Worcester, Mass.), wrote to Professor 

 H. A. Surface, State Zoologist of Penn- 

 sylvania, as follows: 



"Will you kindly advise me whether 

 the San Jose scale is being controlled 

 in your State, and, If so, what reme- 

 dies are being used to destroy it?" 



The answer of Professor Surface was 

 as follows: 



"Replying to your recent letter ask- 

 ing if the San Jose scale is being con- 

 trolled in this State, I beg to say that 

 this depends upon the man behind the 

 spray rod. We have many striking ex- 

 amples of men who are controlling It 

 in an eminently satisfactory manner, 

 as well as examples of persons who 

 have not controlled it. It Is true that 

 where no spraying is being done for It, 

 or where the wrong materials, such as 

 the soluble oils, or too greatly diluted 

 commercial preparations of any kind, 

 are being used, or where the spraying 

 is not done thoroughly. It is not being 

 controlled. But this does not discour- 

 age our progressive fruit growers who 

 know by experience that the San Jose 

 scale problem in Pennsylvania is solved 

 by the application of the boiled lime- 

 sulphur wash, either home-boiled or 

 in the form of the commercial prepa- 

 ration. The latter should not as a rule 

 be diluted more than one to eight, in- 

 stead of one to eleven as the manu- 

 facturers almost univei?ally recom- 

 mend. Our fruit growers have found 

 this year, above all others, that abso- 

 lute thoroughness is the keynote to 

 success, and that not a spot or speck 

 of the bark from the most remote twig 

 to the l;ase oi the trunk must be left 

 unsprayed. 



"The fact that it is being controlled 

 in an eminently successful manner Is 

 inciicated by the very expensive plant- 

 ing that is now going on in all the 

 fruit growing sections of this State. 

 Our fiuit growers are taking renewed 

 courage, and there never has been a 

 year when rarsery stock has been so 

 completely bought up, notwithstanding 

 the unusually high prices, and when 

 planting has been so extensively car- 

 ried on as this fall, and for next spring 

 It promises to be still greater. We 

 are satisfied with results. 



"If any prominent and Intelligent 

 person like yourself would doubt any 

 of these statements in any regard, and 

 will come into the State of Pennsyl- 

 vania, I shall take him over the State 

 and prove to him exactly what is here- 

 in said, and if I do not give him ample 

 and sufficient proof of the full truth 

 of these statements, I shall personally 

 pay 111 the expenses of the inspection 

 tour.'" 



An article having recently appeared 

 in a Harrisburg newspaper in regard 

 to llie remarkable apple crop which 

 Mr. Geiwicks, of Franklin County, real- 

 ized from an orchard which three 

 years ago he had decided to abandon, 

 on account of its unpromising condi- 

 tion, due to the ravages of San Jose 

 scale, Professor Surface, whose name 



