Importance and History of the Apple Industry 23 



with several barrels of Virginia Albemarle Pippins pre- 

 sented to her during the first year of her reign by the late 

 Arthur Stevenson, American minister to England, that she 

 caused the import tax on apples to be removed. Since that 

 time apple exportations to England have rapidly increased. 



While certain species of wild crabs are native to the 

 prairie states and doubtless isolated plantings occurred in 

 this region prior to the Civil War, it was after 1860, at 

 the time of the influx of many early pioneers, that apple 

 trees were brought into the country west of the Mississippi 

 River. The apple industry in this section did not begin to 

 assume commercial importance until the eighties and the 

 decade following. It was at this time that many of the 

 older orchards were planted in the Ozarks, Missouri River 

 region and southern Illinois. Good prices for apples in 

 the late eighties stimulated planting and it was during the 

 nineties that the heavy commercial apple plantings were 

 made in the Middle West. 



The rapidly increasing importance of the western apple 

 regions attracts considerable attention to the history and 

 development of apple culture of the Far West. Probably 

 the first apple trees on the Pacific Coast were grown at 

 Fort Vancouver, Washington, where employees of the 

 Hudson Bay Company are reported to have planted seeds, 

 carried from England, as early in 1825. 



The Parjaro Valley or Watsonville section of California 

 is the oldest commercial apple region in the Far West. 

 The agricultural history of this region dates back to about 

 1820 when Don Antonia Maria Castro applied to the gov- 

 ernment of Spain for a grant of land along the Pajaro 

 River, which he called Vega del Rio del Pajaro. Several 

 large land grants were given to the Spanish Dons during 



