THE ORCHARD FRUITS 195 



there is such a high water content. For this reason apples were 

 practically the only fresh fruit available in winter until the 

 development of the citrus industry. 

 £ The apple, being pre-eminently a cool season crop, is the 

 ^nost widely cultivated fruit of the temperate zone; apples are 

 grown almost everywhere except in the tropics. The chief apple 

 growing countries are North America, western Europe, Australia, 

 New Zealand and South Africa. Though adapted to many differ- 

 ent soils, apples grow best on soil containing a slight amount of 

 lime. The chief apple-producing states, in order of importance, 



Fig. 132. — ^Distribution of acreage devoted to growing apples for market (1930). 



are Washington, New York, Pennsylvania, California, Virginia, 

 Michigan, Ohio and Oregon. Crops for local consumption are 

 grown in almost every state (fig. 132). 



Many of the varieties grown today were the result of chance 

 hybridization in nature. One of the oldest American varieties is 

 the MgIntosh, named after a Canadian farmer of Ontario who 

 discovered this variant in some hybrid "wild" apples in the early 

 part of the nineteenth century. From this stock, propagated by 

 twigs and buds, the Mcintosh trees have multiplied a thousand 

 fold. The NORTHERN SPY Variety originated in Bloomfield, N.Y. 

 about 1800, while the familiar Baldwin apple was discovered 

 near Lowell, Mass. in 1793 by a surveyor working on a canal. The 

 WEALTHY apple, popular in the upper Mississippi valley, ap- 



