THE APPLE SITUATION 



BY LORIAN P. JEFFERSON AND HUBERT W. YOUNT 



During the summer of 1925 a study of the Massachusetts apple industry 

 was conducted as a part of an all New England study under the auspices 

 of the agricultural experiment stations. The purposes were to discover 

 the numbers and varieties of non-bearing and bearing trees by ages; to 

 learn certain facts with regard to orchards and orchard practice; to deter- 

 mine the quantities and grades sold of each variety, and the methods of 

 sale and the prices received. 



The data were collected through personal visits to commercial orchard 

 owners throughout the state. A tentative minimum of 100 bearing trees 

 was fixed as determining a commercial orchard, but smaller orchards were 

 considered if evidently of commercial importance. Approximately 1750 

 growers were visited, complete information on both trees and production 

 being secured from about 1700. 



The results of the study can not be fully stated here, but the following 

 facts and figures give a summary of the situation as shown by the survey, 

 so far as number of trees and plantings are concerned. It should be borne 

 in mind that these figures relate only to orchards of commercial importance 

 and do not include the trees in thousands of small farm orchards. 



The owners of the orchards visited reported a total of 967,000 trees, 

 over 600,000 of which were in bearing. More than seventy-five varieties 

 were reported, but the principal ones together with the number of trees 

 in each table are shown in Table 1. The Baldwin is by far the most im- 

 portant variety, having 45 per cent of the bearing trees and over 50 per 

 cent of the commercial crop. 



The Mcintosh ranks second with 117,000 bearing trees or 20 per cent 

 of the total, and 13 per cent of the apples grown. Nearly 85 per cent of 

 the bearing Mcintosh are under fifteen years of age, which accounts for 

 the relatively low yield. In view of this fact and the large number of trees 

 not yet bearing, the production of Mcintosh apples may reasonably be 

 expected to increase 100 per cent within the next ten years. Onh^ 28 per 

 cent of bearing Baldwin trees are under fifteen years of age, but there 

 will probably be an increase of about 20 per cent in Baldwin production 

 within the next decade. The early varieties such as tlie Transparent and 

 Duchess are relatively unimportant both as to number of trees and pro- 

 duction. Only about 5 per cent of all bearing trees fall witliin this class. 



The Wealthy is third in impoitance so far as bearing trees are con- 

 cerned, but the Gravenstein. with nearly the same number of trees, pro- 

 duces almost twice the crop. Coupled with the fact that many Wealthy 

 trees are fillers, this gi\es the Gravenstein third place as a commercial 

 \ ariet\'. 



New Plantings 



The past ten years have been years of very heavy plantings, over 

 460,000 trees being set during this period. The plantings of Baldwins 

 and Mcintosh have been about equal. Since 1920, however, there has 

 been a decrea.se in the rate of planting. From 1914 to 1919 approximately 

 i'5,000 Mcintosh and 70,000 Baldwin trees were planted. During the 



