The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-04-07
ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT.
The Anple in the South.

F07m, Louisville, Ny, snoWs the lm- portance of the apple in southern fruit culture. The recent triumph of Ar kansas apples over all competitors at Boston, Mass, and Riverside, Cal, places this state above all others in the Union in this particular industry:
 The apple is the most neglected though the most valuable fruit grown in the southern states.
 The whole of the product of the trees can be profitibly utilized. The first grade can be selected for market and home use for eating; the second quality dried or evaporated ill some one of the small evaporators, at very small cost to many families where wood is cheap, and where children who would not be otherwise en- ployed could work. The third grade can be made into cider and vinegar, while the surplus will be greed lily devoured by the hogs; not only taking the place of more expensive food, but adding to the health of swine by preventing cholera and other diseases. When hogs are allowed free access to the orchard they will, in eating the fruit, destroy the eggs and larv@ of insects that are so injurious to fruit.
 All the best early and late summer varities are profitable in shipping to northern markets, while the late kinds adapted to the soil and climate sell for twice as much as the winter apples grown in the northern states. The smaller cities and neighboring will lages of the south would take, at good prices, the large quantities of apples instead of the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth now shipped there from New York and Michigan. The large cities, now supplied from the same source, would for many years consume this surplus.
 Yellow May, Red June, Red Astri- chan, Carolina Watson, flames Yel- low floss, Summer King, Summer Queen, Equinitely, Maiden's Blush, and Hutton, when properly picked, sell in the northern cities for from $2.50 to $500 barrel.
 Ben Davis, Shockley, Lansingburg, Royal Red, Shannon, Harper, Kin nard's Choice, Picket, and others al- ways find ready market at seventy $4.00 barrel.
 Let our southern friends, who have visions of immense wealth in the cul- tivation of the citrous fruits of Cal ifornia and Florida, consider these figures.
 Very few oranges sell where they are grown for more than $1.50 per box or $500 per barrel. While the cost of packing is much greater than packing apples.
 Compare the cheap land and inex- pensive methods of setting an apple orchard in the south as given below, with the extravagant estimates of an orange grove copied from a Riverside, California, circular issued in January, 1888:
 Estimated cost of @ twenty -acre apple orchard in the south at the end of five years;
 Twenty acres fenced land ...... -.......S 1000 One thousand apple trees ........ ........... 100 Setting. cultvatlng and fertilizing or.
  Interest on Sl $50. five years at ten per
 cent....... .............. ................. l85 Total. 2O35
 Estimated cost of an orange orchard of twenty acres at Riverside, Cal, at the expiration of five years:
 Twenty acres of land at 1000 per acre saO 900 One thousand and six hundred trees at
 two dollars each ....... .............. 32OO Planting and caring tor same one year Carting for orchard four years at sso per ''" acre .:.:.............. ............ 240o Interest on ssOOOo for i've years at ten
 Pcr cent...... 100OO Total cost of orchard at end of five
 Cost ner ocra sS9n @ Nost per acre.....,... ,................,..... 1,SD
 twill be seen that have made esti- mates on cost of land that will secure the very best.
 With proper treatment of the apple orchard, the fruit will sell for fully as much as the orange grove. while the net outlay in the latter case will far exceed that in the former.
 Only last fall, at the meeting of the American Pomological Society in Bos- ton, Arkansas took the highest prize the Wilder medal-for the best col lection of apples. This was in compe- tition with the whole north. These same apples were kept until the 14th of February, this year, and sent across the continent, exhibited at the meet ing of the American Horticultural Society, at Riverside, Cal, astonishing the CalifOrnians as we'll as the eastern visitors.
 For full and complete information in regard to railroad lands in the state of Arkansas, write Hon. Thos. Essex or Hon. Thos. M. Gibson, Little Rock, Ark, and 1t will be furnished free.