THE MINNESOTA 



HORTICULTURIST. 



VOL. 29. JULY, 1901. No. 7. 



COMMERCIAL ORCHARDS FOR THE NORTHWEST. 



J. S. TRIGG, ROCKFORD, lA, 



The study of horticulture in the northwest may be divided into 

 two separate and distinct branches, the one which seeks to promote 

 I he growth and production of fruit for the family, and the other the 

 commercial aspect of the case, where fruit is raised to sell. In what 

 I may say to you I shall confine myself wholly and entirely to the 

 commercial side or portion. 



The first thing to consider in relation to the commercial portion 

 is that you must produce the apple and then sell it. It is a well 

 known fact that the entire section of the northwest up to the present 

 time has had to import its fruit, with the possible exception of a sup- 

 ply for a short period during the summer season. I took a couple 

 of hours yesterday afternoon and made the rounds of the fruit men 

 in the city of Minneapolis, of the men who buy apples and supply the 

 trade of the northwest, and it may interest you to know the facts as 

 to the number of barrels of apples that are bought by these men, 

 shipped in here and distributed from this point to the interior points 

 in the northwest. A very conservative statement given to me by the 

 man who handles more fruit than any other man here is this, that 

 not less than 1,600 carloads of apples were shipped in here between 

 the first of September and the first day of February. These cars 

 each averaged 165 barrels, or, to get at it in round numbers, there 

 have been imported into this section of the country 250,000 barrels 

 of apples to supply the wants of the people of the northwest. This is 

 of interest to you as showing what you can do if you raise apples to 

 sell. Of course, we run against the market with our summer apples 

 and find it is glutted, and I presume many here have seen their 

 Duchess and Transcendent crabs and other varieties of summer ap- 



