MARKETING BARRELED APPLES a | 
because of the prevalence of blister canker in the Ben Davis group 
in the Middle West. Jonathan had become the leading kind in 
Missouri in 1923, with Ben Davis and Gano next. 
In years of full yield, the Ozark region is important, producing 
about 5 per cent of the country’s commercial crop. Numerous 
seasons of damage by spring frost and by disease have made the 
production very irregular, resulting in discouragement and neglect, 
but there are many good commercial orchards. The cities of the 
Middle West afford active markets. The barrel is the usual package, 
but fully half the shipments are in bulk. In Buchanan County, 
of northwestern Missouri, 1s another district that ships mostly Ben 
Davis, Gano, Arkansas, and Missouri Pippin. 
WISCONSIN AND MINNESOTA 
Wisconsin and Minnesota are not classed as leading apple regions, 
but commercial orchards are numerous in’ Door and Bayfield Coun- 
ties, Wis., and in Houston and Hennepin Counties, Minn. Leading 
varieties are Oldenburg, Wealthy, Northwestern Greening, Fameuse, 
and McIntosh. 
KANSAS, IOWA, AND NEBRASKA 
The region along the Arkansas River in Kansas is intermediate in 
character. It produces the usual midwestern varieties, but uses the 
box package rather than the barrel, and practices irrigation. The 
commercial production is about 1,000 carloads and tends to increase. 
Another district of about equal importance in Doniphan County has 
some well-managed, productive orchards. Adjoining this section on 
the north are Nemaha and Richardson Counties in Nebraska and 
several counties of Iowa, all heavy shippers of the Ben Davis and 
similar varieties, in barrel and bulk, and of Jonathan and Winesap. 
ADVANTAGES AND DRAWBACKS 
The successful apple regions did not develop by chance. Apple 
trees were set in Many pines but not all sections proved able to 
increase and to survive the general competition, although handicaps 
of one kind or another were sometimes offset, for a time at least, by 
special advantages or improved methods. 
The barrel region feels northwestern competition all the more 
because of generally greater hability to frost damage and less inten- 
sive methods of production and marketing, but the East has com- 
peeavely near-by markets and cold-storage plants, more abundant 
abor supply, and somewhat less trouble from the codling moth. 
Most of the well-known apple regions have natural frost protec- 
tion, because of nearness to large bodies of water or because of the 
general elevation of the orchard sites. Absence of such conditions 
means more uncertain and irregular crops. Usually the soil of the 
best regions is fertile, well drained, and adapted to orchard machinery. 
The increasing dependence on power machinery handicaps the rough- 
land orchardist more and more. Lack of good soil means lower 
yield or higher cost. Suitable orchard areas in a commercial region 
must be of sufficient size to permit fairly large-scale operations and 
concentration of the industry around convenient shipping points. 
Most regions have found leading varieties that are especially well 
