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or Northwest to start in the apple industry realize what they- 

 are up against. The price of land in most of these sections 

 will cost from $250 to $350 per acre. When I speak of land 

 at this price I mean good apple land. This price varies 

 some according to distance from transportation. This land 

 which is covered with scrub oak or large fir or pine stumpa 

 from which the timber has been cut will cost from $150 to 

 $200 per acre to clear it for planting trees, so you see ho\v 

 much you have invested in land alone before you start your 

 orchard. Bearing orchards say from eight years up will 

 cost from $1,000 to $2,000 per acre so no matter whether a 

 person buys land in the rough or a bearing orchard he has a 

 fortune invested. 



Now I don't want you to get the idea that there is no 

 money made from these high priced orchards because a 

 good many of them to my knowledge are paying a good div- 

 idend on the investment some of them paying fifteen and 

 twenty per cent, on two thousand dollars an acre land. 



A person can make the start here a good deal cheaper 

 than he can there for the reason you can buy just as good 

 apple land as you will find anyAvhere, the highest price not 

 to exceed one hundred dollars per acre, and a large amount 

 for considerable less. 



Some one has said that your statements do not verify 

 the literature that comes from that section. The literature 

 is all right as far as it goes, but in most cases it does not go 

 far enough, it does not tell the other side to show you what 

 our methods in Hood River did for us in 1910. I will give 

 you a few figures. 



The Apple Growers Union received for its members ' i 

 1910 two million and a half dollars for their apples, while 

 the state of Maine with one million barrels of apples receiv- 

 ed less than a million dollars for its Growers, Now when a 

 small Valley like Hood River which is only six miles i:i 

 width and twenty long can take that much money right out 

 of your own market, it is high time that you sit up and take 

 notice. On my trip west I stopped in Michigan at the small 

 town of Lawton which is in the grape belt of Southern Mich- 

 igan. The growers were hardly receiving enough 

 returns from their fruit to pay for the harvest. On 

 inquiring what the trouble was I found that each grower 

 packed his own fruit and the majority of them were very 

 adept at putting the bad ones in the bottom and a few good 



