2 The Commercial Apple Industry 



dustry. No small factor in bringing about the changing 

 fortunes of the apple-growers has been a lack of definite 

 information regarding the status of the industry in com- 

 peting regions Temporary high prices determined in a 

 large measure the rate of planting in most sections. 

 Census figures giving agricultural, but not commercial, 

 production of apples, have been used in forecasting cycles 

 of either over- or under-planting. In census figures 

 no line was drawn between commercial and agricultural 

 production. Many times when the agricultural produc- 

 tion was decreasing, the commercial production, or that 

 portion of the crop which reaches the market and affects 

 prices, was actually increasing, in some instances very 

 materially. A sharp line must, therefore, be drawn be- 

 tween commercial and non-commercial production if we 

 are to make a correct analysis of the industry and view 

 the future in the proper light. 



It has been only within comparatively recent years that 

 commercial apple-growing in the United States has ex- 

 perienced such a very noticeable change from what might 

 be termed a local, home orchard or semi-commercial enter- 

 prise into a highly specialized and scientific industry of 

 national proportions, centralized in certain favored local- 

 ities, involving intensive and technical methods of culture, 

 and necessitating very complex and intricate methods of 

 distribution and marketing. In other words, the apple 

 crop has been taken from the list of general farm products 

 and has been placed among the foremost specialized crops. 

 In 1919 the apple crop of the United States was valued 

 at $275,463,000. It ordinarily ranks about ninth in the 

 list of farm crops, being exceeded in total value only by 

 wheat, oats, cotton, corn, potatoes, barley, hay and tobacco. 



