332 



APPLE 



APPLE 



All the better grades of apples are wrapped in paper, 

 and lithographs are plaetxi on the boxes. I'lie fruit is 

 pr:»d»\l \-ery carefully before packing. The pr(>sent 

 tendency is to use one size of box and |)ack the apples 

 by what is known as llic diagonal pack. 



Packing-housig. — \'cry large and expensive packing- 

 houses are being erected all over the Pacific Coast and 

 enormous storage plants are being built at all the ijn- 

 nic<liate shipping points. In most cases, the packing 

 is very rigorously inspected. Most of the states have 

 laws that require the grower to put on the box his 

 name, the grade of fruit and the number of specimens 

 in the package. Most associations rc(]uirc the packer 

 to stamp his number on the box, so tliat in tlie case of 

 any imperfect ions it can be e:usily traced. 



Morkeling. — The marketing of the fruit is done 

 largely through associations. By cooperating, the 

 growers have been able to improve constantly their 

 pack and have also tendeil to distribute the fruit more 

 widely. At the present time, the Pacific Coast is send- 

 ing fruit to nearly all the leading ports of the world, and 

 the effort is ra:ide to get a wider and wider distribution 

 rather than to send it to a few distributing points like 

 Chicago and Xew York, which was the system formerly 

 followed. 



The wilhngnes-s of the people to organize, and the 

 cooperative system, which is broadcast in the region, 

 is a very important factor in successful aijple-culture 

 on the Pacific Coast. C. I. Lewis. 



The apple in California. 



.Although the apple was introduced into southern 

 Cahfoniia by the Mission padres nearly a century 

 before the American occupation, and although the Rus- 

 sians established an apple orchard in northern Cali- 

 fornia more than a quarter of a century before the gold 

 discoverj', it was not fully demonstrated until about 

 1880 that the state can produce an apple of character 

 and quaUty to entitle the region to standing among 





rA 



r4-*i«.'- 



4 \Am>-^P^ 



278. A California apple orchard. 



the commercial apple regions of the United States. 

 California pioneers were accustomed to concede apple 

 adaptations to Oregon and to claim none for them- 

 selves. This w'a.s chiefly due to the fact that early 

 plantings were made in the mining districts of the 

 lower foothills and on valley lands a<Jjacent to routes of 

 travel thereto from the port of Han Francisco. Climatic 

 onditions in such situations forced too early maturity 

 of winter varieties, which impaired quality and keeping 

 and, as main commercial desirability was vested in 

 long-keeping, California was conceded to lack adapta- 

 tion.i for the production of a good apple, and local sup- 

 plies of the fruit were drawn for three decades froin the 

 orchards in western f)regon. Pojtular judgment was, 

 however, reversed by the notable long-keeping of Cali- 

 fornia apples shown at the Xew Orleans Fair in 188.5, 

 which is explained by the fact that the exhibits were 



gathered from family orchards in the coast districts and 

 in the high jUat cans and mountain valleys where grow- 

 ing coniiitions an> quite unlike those of the lower 

 foothills and adjacent, valleys. The conclusion from 

 this dcmonst ration was that when the right variety is 

 planted in the right place, in California, superior fruit, 

 both for local use and long shipment, may be secured. 

 Sinci' that time, California a]iples have been success- 

 fully sold in consiilerable tjuantities in England and on 

 the continent of Europe, on the .-Vtlantic Coast of Amer- 

 ica, in .Australia and in Eastern Asia — as well as 

 throughout the interior states of the Pacific Slope, in 

 Canada and in Alaska. The uprise of a great apple 

 industry in other states of the Pacific Slope has, how- 

 ever, recently excluded the California winter apple 

 from large American areas in which it formerly sold 

 freely, but California still retains in the same areas its 

 market for smnmer and fall apples because mature 

 fruit can be shipped before the same varieties ripen 

 farther north or at greater elevations. Fig. 278 shows 

 a representative California apple orchard. 



Summer apples. 



It is now clear that there are two distinct branches 

 of the apple industry of California, in which, first, 

 effort is concentrated on the production of summer 

 apples in what are known as early districts and, second, 

 fall and winter apples in other districts where slower 

 development is favored by prevalence of lower spring 

 and summer temperatures. In the interior valleys and 

 lower foothills, the forcing heat brings early varieties, 

 like the Astrachans, quickly to notable size, crispness 

 and flavor, and there is an ample demand for such fruit 

 for shipment, providing it is sound and free from pests, 

 some of which, however, are more aggressive than they 

 are in cooler sections. Fall apples are successfully 

 grown in the same districts but they also are profitable 

 in the coast district, as is shown by the behavior of 

 the Gravenstein in the Sebastopol section of Sonoma 

 County where "Gravenstein shows" are annually held 

 in August. Another instance of specialization is found 

 in the commercial importance of the Yellow Bellflower 

 in the W.atsonville district, where it enters largely into 

 the ".Apple Annual" — a greater exhibition held the first 

 week in October. In these typical fall-apple districts, 

 the winter apples are also important, the Esopus 

 (Spitzenberg) leading these varieties at Sebastopol and 

 the Yellow Newtown at Watsonville. These facts 

 emphasize the importance of certain varieties; for spe- 

 cialization is built upon varieties even more than upon 

 the classes to which they belong. 



Winter apples. 



The chief importance does, however, rest with the 

 winter apple in California, in the same way, but perhaps 

 not to such a degree, as in other apple-growing states 

 and coimt ries, anfl the chief investment and expectation 

 are made upon that basis. Aside from the conditions 

 cited, which make nearly exclusively for the summer 

 and early fall varieties, the state has great capacity 

 for the production of winter apples of the type for 

 which the coast hii.s become so famous during the last 

 few years. Every county in the state has apple trees, 

 but the requirements of a winter apple are fully met by 

 two main divisions of the state, viz.: the smaller val- 

 leys close to the coast, in fact, in some cases, the coast 

 flats, where the exposure is directly toward the cooling 

 breezes of the ocean which produce a cool summer — a 

 long, slow-growing sesison, which develops great beauty 

 and high quality in a winter apple. Similar results are 

 also i)roiluced by the climate found at an elevation of 

 about 2, .')()() to .'),()()() feet on the interior plateaus and in 

 the mountain valleys. The co.ast di.strict has developed 

 a greater commercial apple industry than the moun- 

 tains, because transportation facilities for shipment are 

 vastly better; but as the state advances, the mountain 



