68 The Commercial Apple Industry 



base of the Cascades. A very intensive region is in a 

 semi-circular area about the town of Wenatchee. There 

 is a considerable variation of altitude throughout the valley, 

 but most of the orchards are at an elevation of 700 to 1,000 

 feet. 



The Wenatchee Valley is even more intensive and com- 

 pact than the Yakima Valley. Its development dates back 

 to about 1900, when the first large irrigation canal, later 

 known as the Wenatchee Highline Canal, was begun. The 

 planting of fruit-trees was more or less correlated with the 

 development of irrigation. The total apple acreage in 

 North Central Washington, including the Wenatchee Val- 

 ley and the upper Columbia, is approximately 40,000 

 acres. Some of this acreage is in Okanogan, Douglas and 

 Grant counties adjoining Chelan County on the east. 

 The shipments reached a maximum in 1919-1920 of 

 12,300 cars of 756 boxes each. \ 



The farms in general throughout the Wenatchee region 

 are small, most of them averaging not over fifteen acres 

 and many even less. Some large projects embrace as 

 many as several hundred acres each, but the region is not 

 adapted to the extensive type of agriculture. The two 

 predominating limiting factors are the high price of land 

 and the small area of irrigable land. Peaches and pears 

 are grown in limited quantities and there is also a consider- 

 able acreage of alfalfa, but most of the Tatter occurs as an 

 inter- or shade crop in the apple orchards. 



An intensive survey made by the authors in the Wenat- 

 chee Valley indicated an average investment to the acre 

 of nearly $2,000. It may be seen that with such a high 

 valuation only a highly specialized crop like apples can 

 ever be made to bring a sufficient return on the invest- 



