THE MARKETING OF AN APPLE CROP. 403 



You cannot do a fruit business at long-range; you must be on the 

 ground and meet your customers frequently. In 1892 we harvested 

 a crop of 1,500 to 1,800 bushels and hauled it to surrounding towns in 

 wagons. Our profits were more than twice as much as the same 

 number of bushels have ever netted us since. It may seem strange 

 that a crop of that size could be marketed so near home. It was 

 possible by carefully selecting' the fruit and giving dealers a better 

 quality than they could get elsewhere and keeping them supplied. 

 Another fact which every fruit grower should know is that a de- 

 mand for fruit can be cultivated quite as profitably as his orchard. 

 I know of no village in the state that uses the fruit per capita that 

 our own town of Hurley does. I roughly estimate our sales here for 

 this season as follows: two thousand quarts of strawberries, five 

 hundred quarts of cherries, and two hundred barrels of apples. At 

 the risk of appearing egotistical, I will say that this increased de- 

 mand is due largely to the influence of our fruit farm. 



In conclusion, let me add that the fruit industry of South Dakota 

 is not a name but a real tangible fact. The time has come when 

 our fruit must take its place with the butter, beef and other pro- 

 ducts of our teeming- prairies, of which <^very South Dakotan can be 

 justly proud. Dipping in the future as far as human eye can see, I 

 behold numberless barrels of apples bearing the stamp of the 

 ^'South Dakota Fruit Grower's Association" going out through all 

 the marts of commerce to supply the needs of a great and expand- 

 ing west. 



HISTORY OF THE PEERLESS APPLE. 



GEO. R. MILLER, RICHLAND. 



In the year 1864 or 1865, my father procured some apples which 

 were grown in my Uncle George Dorrance's orchard. He saved and 

 planted the seed of these apples, one of which produced the Peer- 

 less. The tree soon attracted attention on account of its thrifty ap- 

 pearance, smooth bark and green leaf. Our hopes of the tree were 

 more than fulfilled when it began to bear when it was seven years 

 old. It kept gradually increasing its crop, bearing nearly every 

 year, till in 1886, when it bore eleven bushels of fine, large, red ap- 

 ples. We had twenty-seven props under it that year, and yet some 

 of the limbs broke. 



Some gentlemen from Illinois were visiting in the neighborhood, 

 came to see the tree, and they said that they had never seen anything 

 like it. 



That same autumn Mr. O. F. Brand began to cut scions to propa- 

 gate it, and it was sheared so closely that it could not bear much 

 fruit for a number of years. 



In the winter of 1887-8, we had a very heavy fall of snow, seven feet 

 on the level by government measurement. It drifted in among our 

 trees very badly, and when it thawed and froze in the early spring 

 it injured the Peerless so that it never fully recovered. It bore five 

 bushels of apples in 1895. During a wind storm in August, 1896, it 

 was blown to pieces, having on a fair crop of fruit. 



