8 The Commercial Apple Industry 



were good. During the decade 1865 to 1875, prices con- 

 tinued high, and during the period 1850 to 1875 over half 

 of the present bearing orchards in western New York 

 were set. Over-production began to be felt in about 1880. 

 From this time on commercial production increased and 

 prices fell until 1896, when the 76,000,000 barrel crop 

 (agricultural) was grown and the industry reached low 

 price ebb. 



From 1890 to 1896 many growers pulled out their trees, 

 confident that the good prices would never return. Very 

 little planting was undertaken in this period. In about 

 fifteen years prices began to climb back until the crest of 

 another wave was reached between 1907 and 1911. As 

 prices improved, beginning in 1900 and continuing up 

 until 1908-9, there occurred another heavy planting pe- 

 riod which assumed the proportions of a boom in many 

 western states. It was during this period that most of 

 the acreage in such box-apple sections as Yakima, Wen- 

 atchee, Hood River, southern Idaho and Colorado, which 

 in 1919 produced nearly half of the commercial apples 

 in the United States, was set. Five consecutive failures 

 in the Ozark, Missouri, crop, from frost-injury, contributed 

 to this inflation by creating a strong demand for northwest 

 fruit in a territory ordinarily supplied. 



The productiveness of such valleys as the Yakima and 

 Wenatchee in Washington was phenomenal. Trees were 

 young and free from disease, the yields on bearing 

 trees were unusual and the returns to the acre were far 

 greater than had been thought possible from any com- 

 mercial orchard. Gross sales sometimes exceeded $2,000 

 an acre and in some instances orchards sold for as high as 



