PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-SFXTH FRUIT-GROWERS * CONVENTION. 33 



may the apple be expected to do its best?" At this late day we could, 

 perhaps, ignore the question were it not the fact that never before in 

 the history of the human race has it assumed such great commercial 

 importance as it presents to-day in this newest of all civilized lands, the 

 Pacific coast of the United States. With us it is not merely a question 

 of a few trees or a few hundred trees as an annex to general farming ; 

 it concerns itself with the development of important parts of states or 

 even of whole states ; of thousands of people, and of millions of dollars. 

 Thus, a very old question now assumes such new phases that it may 

 require years of study and experience to answer it from these new 

 points of view. 



Are elevated regions entitled to the distinction which they are now 

 claiming as alone suited to the production of winter apples of the high- 

 est finish and beauty, and the most perfect keeping qualities, and will 

 the fruit continue to command the lofty prices which it is now receiving 

 after traversing a quarter to a third of the world's circumference to 

 reach the world's great markets? This is a question involving pomol- 

 ogy, commerce, and finance, and in the sciences and arts of these three 

 great branches of human activity favorable demonstrations must come 

 to justify claims which are now being made, in some parts of the coast, 

 that a thousand dollars per acre can be supported as a reasonable valua- 

 tion for good apple land and five thousand per acre is not unreason- 

 able to claim as the value of a thrifty young bearing orchard. Will 

 all these favorable demonstrations be attained? It would manifestly 

 require the most piercing analytic insight and the most clear and accurate 

 prophetic foresight to submit an answer which could be accepted as con- 

 clusive. Nevertheless, it is a question which every commercial apple 

 grower should ponder and upon which he should watch for every ray 

 of light which can be drawn from observation and experience. I have 

 no thought of penetrating the depths of the problem, but rather to 

 indicate a few features of the environment of the question by way of 

 which, perhaps, the ultimate determination may be approached. 



It must be conceded that the mountain apple is superior to the valley 

 apple in beauty and finish, in texture and in keeping quality, when it 

 has been well grown under conditions which enable the favoring fea- 

 tures of the elevation to do their best work. Taking the apple to the 

 mountain does not imply that the elevation will do the rest. Every 

 principle of good culture and every recourse of protection must be as 

 assiduously applied— possibly even more so— to attain the best com- 

 mercial results. But this superiority of the maintain apple is not a 

 recent discovery, nor are the conditions which impart it at all restricted 

 to the parts of the coast which are now making greatest claims to them 

 as a distinctive natural endowment. The grand beauty and keeping 

 quality of California mountain apples were demonstrated very soon after 

 the American occupation and before any commercial greatness in our 

 fruit products was thought of. The fact was thrown in the world's eye 

 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. A systematic 

 demonstration was made at the Xew Orleans Exposition of 1885. where 

 apples grown at elevations from two to four thousand feet in different 

 parts of California were shown in June of the following year in com- 

 petition with the fruit grown in the mountains of Arkansas and Mis- 



3 — FGC 



