The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1889-02-08

it especially valuable as a dairy
country, and this fact has operated to
some extent to divert the farmers from
the idea Of looking to fruit as source
of revenue and as natural consequence
even good home supply is not always
grown and no special place is provided
for keeping it when there is an abun-
dant crop, as is the case this season.
Where reasonable care is given we
have good crops nearly every year and
an entire failure is exceptional.
With the principal part Of the terri
tory covered by the limits Of this SO.
ciety, cattle raising has not crowded
out fruit, but the very fact of our light
soil of easy culture, so gently rolling as
not to be washed badly by rains, has
made it specially desirable for fruit of
Of all sorts. Apples, I have said, have
been left behind. I will try to give
few reasons why.
My first proposition is put down as
an axiom.
I'd. The earliest apples sell readily
when sent to a Northern market in
peach baskets or crates until such time
as peaches become plentiful. They. rot
nearly as fast as the latter and will not
bear to be packed in barrels. 1t is
useless to grow many varieties that
ripen at the same time as peaches.
Those ripening after peaches are
nearly over can be made profitable if
we provide facilities for drying them or
otherwise preserving them when mar
kets are overstocked. With the op-
portunity Of watching the apple market
for the past thirty years or more, since
We have made it business to grow
them for sale, | have seldom or never
seen it SO overcrowded during the early
winter and fall months as this year.
We have repeatedly sold our Baldwins
and Fallowatcrs and others of similar
time of ripening just as they were pick.
ed from the trees, and realized much
better prices tor them than New York
Baldwins brought few weeks later in
the season. Our apples were sold be-
fore the Northern crop reached our
market. A difficulty we have had has
been that we have not had enough of
them. We have no apple barrels in all
this country and must use old ones.
We have not enough to ship in car.
load lots and are compelled to pay local
freight rates, SO that we are the losers
in two ways. With more apples to ship
we can have uniform barrels and make
our fruit look better, secure lower
freights, and make a reputation and
business that it will pay to look after,
just as has been done with peaches and
berries. This answers my third prop
osition and partly my fourth.
Those who have not been there, can
hardly appreciate the immense business
now being done in dried fruit in the
apple growing sections North and
West. They now are evaporating
even some of the lowest gradea-fruit
our hogs would hardly eat-and even
the skins ane cores are dried and sold
for what is termed Jelly stock.'
have written this much about ap-
pies in general without saying anything
about the particular subject for which
| am booked, or that with which this
sketch is headed. The first item in
celebrated receipt for cooking hare,
is, "6rst catch the hare" So in this 1
have purposely avoided much that has
been said and given some reasons why
we should produce more apples. Be-
fore we can have "apple for winter" we
must grow them, and that too in con-
siderable quantities, A house cellar is
unfit for them for many reasons, and
potato hole is equally bad, so we must
provide place on purpose and If we
would be practical We must do enough
to make it pay.
As it has been, our only profit has
been from apples sold from the orchard,
the loss from rot and labor of sorting
them whom kept, has more than over
balanced any enhanced price.
There are two ways to correct this
trouble and we have tried both with
satisfactory results. The first and most
r.