324 



APPLE 



APPLE 



planter should avoid unless it is overbalanced by other important 

 advantages. As roads are improved, the practical distance will 

 increase. 



Several of the State Experiment Stations, as well as 

 the United States Department of Agriculture and the 

 North Carolina Department of Agriculture, have pub- 

 lished bulletins bearing on different phases of apple- 

 orcharding, especially Maryland, Virginia, West Vir- 

 ginia, Tennessee, and South Carolina. 



WM. A. TAYLOB. 



The apple in mid-continental or plains 

 districts. 



In that vast region of the interior of the United States 

 which lies between the Great Lakes, Ohio, Kentucky, 

 and Tennessee on the east and the Rocky Mountain 

 states on the west, the Canadian boundary on the 



273. The mid-continental corn-belt, in which the apple is the leading fruit; and the Wisconsin 

 drift, on which the Ben Davis family is not at its best. 



north and the Gulf states on the south, the leading fruit 

 is the apple. This mid-continental territory includes 

 the greater part of that exceptionally rich agricul- 

 tural region which has come to be known as the corn- 

 belt of America. (Fig. 273.) It extends also into the 

 northern wheat-belt of the Upper Mississippi Valley 

 plains and into the wheat and livestock country of the 

 Great Plains Plateau of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, 

 and the Dakotas. 



Geography. 



The topography may be indicated in a very general 

 way by the statement that this region takes in the 

 Upper Mississippi Valley plains, a large part of the 

 Great Plains Plateau, and all of that more limited area 

 known as the Ozark Plateau. Its great river valleys are 

 those of the Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, and 

 Red. A limited area in Minnesota and the Dakotas lies 



in the valley of the Red River of the North and a rather 

 narrow strip along the northeast boundary lies in the 

 basin of the Great Lakes. 



The larger part of this mid-continental district, as 

 outlined, has an elevation of 500 feet to 2,000 feet 

 above sea-level. The southwest point of Indiana, 

 southern Illinois, southeastern Missouri, and eastern 

 Arkansas have an elevation of less than 500 feet. The 

 remainder of Indiana and Illinois, much of Missouri, 

 and a portion of southern and eastern Iowa lie between 

 500 feet and 1,000 feet elevation. The range of eleva- 

 tion of 1,000 to 2,000 feet takes in the remaining parts 

 of Iowa, most of Minnesota, and the eastern part of 

 the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and the 

 Ozarks. The remainder lies to the west in the Great 

 Plains Plateau at an elevation above 2,000 feet. 



In the more northern and western districts of this 

 region, there is little or no commercial orcharding. 

 Only in their more favored 

 localities are apples produced 

 at all, and the lists are re- 

 stricted to the hardier varie- 

 ties. This is because the re- 

 curring extremes of tempera- 

 ture and of drought make the 

 environment unfavorable to 

 the apple, at least during 

 critical periods. But through- 

 out the states of the corn-belt, 

 the apple is very generally 

 grown for home use and certain 

 sections show a notable de- 

 velopment of commercial or- 

 charding (Figs. 274, 275). In 

 fact, the most extensive indi- 

 vidual apple orchards known 

 are found in parts of Arkansas, 

 Missouri, Kansas, and Illinois, 

 some of them being several 

 hundred acres in extent. 



Orchards well located and 

 rightly managed are proving to 

 be profitable in different sec- 

 tions of the corn-belt states. 

 With the rapid growth of the 

 United States in population and 

 wealth, must come a corres- 

 ponding increase in the home- 

 market demand for good apples 

 at remunerative prices. This, 

 with the improvement and ex- 

 tension of storage and trans- 

 portation facilities and the con- 

 temporaneous expansion of our 

 foreign trade, tends to make the 

 outlook encouraging for the 

 apple-growing industry in this 

 region. The more general adop- 

 tion of up-to-date methods of marketing and of orchard 

 management will help to put the industry on a more 

 stable basis, and gradually to enlarge it and extend it. 



Rank in apple-production. 



According to the United States census reports of 

 1910, approximately 40 per cent of the bearing apple 

 trees of the United States is found in the territory 

 above outlined, together with 33 per cent of the young 

 trees not yet of bearing age. In the census year of 

 1909, it produced approximately one-fourth of the 

 apple crop of the entire United States. 



Following is a list based on United States census 

 reports, which indicates something of the relative stand- 

 ing. For comparison they are also ranked as to their 

 averages in apple-crop production for 1905, 1907, and 

 1909, combined on the basis of the crop reports pub- 

 lished in the American Agriculturist Yearbook : 



