298 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
The Apple as an Essential Food 
The following i'epublished from the Fruit World cannot be too widely known. 
'rhal the supply of fruit—and especially Apples—will 
be a deciding factor in the war is a statement authorita¬ 
tively made by an eminent British physician, Dr. Josiah 
Oldtudd, Senior Medical OfTicer to the Lady Margaret’s’ 
Fi’uilarian Hospital of England, in his essay on “Fruit 
and Its Effect on the War” says:— 
“In the early weeks of the war I gave an interview to 
one of the London dailies, and ventured to prophesy that 
the end of the contest would be influenced largely by 
dielaiy problems, and in these problems I did not con¬ 
sider that the (jueslion of protein and scale calorific 
values for muscular substance would be of so much im- 
poilance as those of foods which supply nerve nutrition, 
i. e., fats and salines. It is veiy difficult to deprive any 
besieged countly -or even any besieged city—of all 
sources of muscular nourishment so long as any other 
cellulose remains to be transformed by chemical 
agencies into a more digestible form of carbohydrate. 
The difficulty for Gennany as a beleaguered country.was 
therefore not really either meat, or cereals, or potatoes, 
but fats and fruits and salads. The joining up of Tur¬ 
key threw my prophecy out of gear as to time, because it 
opened up the great stores of oil and figs and other fruits 
of Asia Minor. This source is slowly failing, and to-day, 
in spite of a complete calorific dietary, the people of Ger¬ 
many are beginning to develop the disease of mal neiwe 
nutrition. There are beginning in Germany already 
grave manifestations of the basic origin of many 
diseases. The latest is a widespread cedeina in the legs 
and feet and face, of which particulars are given in a 
late issue of ‘The Lancet.’ This will steadily get worse 
and worse as another winter comes on unless fresh fruit, 
and salads and seed oils, can be introduced largely into 
Germany. I have dealt at length with Germany and her 
late, to emphasize the great importance of avoiding a 
similar catastrojdie for England. English stamina, cou¬ 
rage, endurance and heart for the war depend on com¬ 
plete neiTe nutrition. Now for this the calorific values 
of wheat, or beans, -or beef, affords no criterion. The 
danger is that laboratoiy scientists will measure the com¬ 
parative importance of cargoes by calorific values, and 
will on this ground tend to debar juicy fruits as being 
veiy light cargo compared with legumes or cereals. 
Eveiy effort should be exercised to prevent this, or else, 
when the mischief is done, there will be a panic impor¬ 
tation of anti-scorbutic fruits. I note that a small num¬ 
ber of shl])s are still allow^ed to run to the West Indies 
for Bananas, and this is excellent, but weight for w eight 
and bulk for bulk, the most 'important fruit to be im¬ 
ported during the winter and early spring of 1918 is 
Aj)])les. Were I food controller in Germany and allowed 
the choice of free import of one ailicle of food from No¬ 
vember to April, I should select the Apple. So, in Eng¬ 
land, while for importation purposes legumes and pea¬ 
nuts are the most concentrated form of proteid; rice and 
wheat and maize, the most important of the cereals; olive 
oil, sesame oil, peanut oil and almond oil, the finest forms 
of fat; Apples, Lemons, Oranges (and onions) are im¬ 
measurably the most important of fruits, which are nerve 
foods, and without the presence of whose salts physio¬ 
logical functions fail. It will be a grave risk to Eng¬ 
land’s home stamina if her supply of Apples is cut off, 
because during winter conditions in this climate they are 
superior to either Lemons or Oranges, and cannot be re¬ 
placed by any other fruit.’” 
GOST OF PBODUGING APPLES IN YAKIMA VALLEY, 
WASHINGTON 
Bulletin 614 U. S. D. of A., 1918 reports a detailed 
study in 1916 of the current cost factors involved in the 
maintenance of orchards and the handling of the crop on 
120 representative bearing orchards in Yakima Valley. 
The total annual acre cost of producing apples for the 
120 farms studied was 8346.68, or 80.02 cts. per box, 
figured on an average yield of 432 boxes per acre. The 
net labor cost w as 34.49 cts. per box, or 43.11 per cent of 
the total net cost. Of the labor cost 17.71 per cent of the 
total cost was charged to maintenance and 26.4 jier cent 
to handling. Material and fixed costs were 46.63 cts. per 
box, or 66.89 per cent of the total net cost. The greatest 
item of fixed cost w as the interest on investment, wdiicli 
made up 43.91 per cent of the cost other than labor and 
24.98 per cent of the total net annual cost. The increased 
labor cost in cultivated orchards w^as offset by lower 
yields from orchards under the mulph-crop system, hence 
the total cost of production was essentially the same for 
both classes of orchards. Only orchards of bearing age, 
7 years or older, were considered in this investigation, 
their average age being 12.6 years. 
Ot the princi})al commercial varieties now^ grown, 
Winesap, Jonathan, and Ben Davis make up about 43 per 
cent ol the total acreage. Other important varieties 
grown are Esojnis, Missouri, Yellow Newtown, Bonie, 
Beauty, Gano, Arkansas, and Stayman Winesap. 
