CONFERENCE OF GOVERNORS. 25 



total yield of the orchards was computed at 69,070,000 barrels. 

 Although since that time thousands of acres of land have been 

 added to the apple-producing area, and while methods of orchard 

 management have improved, yet the reports for 1908 show that 

 the crop in the United States does not exceed 35,000,000 barrels, 

 and the crop of 1896 has never been approximated; in fact, the 

 average annual yield of the United States for the five years from 

 1902 to 1906 is 38,364,200 barrels. It is true that the crop 

 of 1896 was not a profitable one to the growers; but this was 

 largely due to faulty distribution. Our methods of distributing 

 have, been tremendously improved in recent years, our population 

 has vastly increased, and the needs of our people for apples are 

 much greater than they were ten years ago ; yet at the present 

 time we have less than half the total product to pffer them. Our 

 European outlet is enlarging, our home consumption is steadily 

 increasing, and there is no reasonable fear of overproduction in 

 the life of the present generation. Fruit-growing countries of 

 Europe do not produce fruit in a commercial way. The amateur 

 method has been so thoroughly implanted in the popular mind 

 that no change is likely to occur for many years to come. If a 

 change does occur, it is altogether likely that the increase in con- 

 sumption will more than care for the increase in production. 



The Opportunity for Export. 



For the half-decade from 1902 to 1906 inclusive, New England 

 produced an average crop of 3,432,400 barrels of apples. The 

 average annual export has amounted to 600,000 barrels, or an 

 amount equal to 17 per cent, of the whole. The average annual 

 crop of the United States for this same period has been 38,364,200 

 barrels, and of this amount 1,584,518 barrels, or 4.1 per cent., have 

 been annually exported. 



It is thus seen that the percentage of apples exported from the 

 ?vew England group of States is considerably higher than that 

 exported from the country as a whole; but when we remember 

 the remarkable strategic position which Few England occupies 

 for export facilities, and the further fact^that all this region pos- 

 sesses admirable topographic soil and climatic conditions, in addi- 

 tion to vast areas of suitable cheap lands, to which are to be added 

 all the advantages of the best home markets on the continent, we 

 cannot but be amazed that the opportunity is not more completely 

 utilized, and that, instead of producing 3,000,000 barrels annually 

 and buying every year for home consumption apples grown in the 



