Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1893-12-04
HARVESTING THE APPLE
HOW THE WINTER FRUIT rs GROWN
AND GATHERED.
Apple Raising in Western New York
Does Not Reward Its Grower as it
ormerly Did.

| 4 ANU builtlo dhu
| x barrels and barrels. Barrels
| piled on barrels. Barrels in
big loads and barrels in little
i loads--not great clumsy painted bar
rels for the reception of oil or whisky
or pork or lard, but light, graceful
barrels shortly to be filled with what
is, all things considered, the most de-
licious fruit in the world.
The passage of loads of apple barrels
along the highways and byways of an
| apple producing region indicates that
the time for picking is at hand. "One
of the liveliest, drivingest times they
is in the hull year" as an apple grower,
who is proud of his success rs such,
described the apple harvest the other
day. Apples grow in most parts of
the United States north of certain
line, but there are some regions where
they are staple crop, and there you
may see such rows of trim, well-kept
apple trees, such wide extending or
chards, as, if you are new conner, will
make you open your eyes for pure
wonder.
shall never forget the first time I
saw the orchards that lie between the
famous ridge road and Lake Ontario
III level Western New York. Orchards
were not an unfamiliar sight to me,
but such orchards had never dreamed
of. 1t was in June. The air was heavy
with perfume and vibrant with the
notes of song birds, for it was before
the ugly English sparrow had come tc
America and driven the native feath-
cred musicians from their own. My
boyish eyes had always been used to
picturesque irregularities of hill and
valley, but the everywhere extending
fruit farms of this, to me, new region
more than made up for lack of diver
sity in the landscape.
At the time of which I write the rails
ing of apples was at its best as profit
able business. Two, three and even
four dollars barrel was obtained for
the fruit every fall, and every year the
acreage of the orchards WAS largely in
creased Fortunes, rs money was
then and there counted, were being
made by apple raisers, and year by
year the crop was greater in quantity
and finer in quality. Peaches, which
had before this time been one of the
standbys, were being abandoned as the
peach orchards passed beyond the limit
of full bearing age and the trees were
uprooted to make way for the victori-
GUS apple.
Here and there throughout the re-
gion were long, low sheds, under which
men worked from early spring until
near the end of the harvest making
barrels for the crop, and where coop
ers' choruses, more genuine than that
in the opera "Boccaccio," were to be
heard every day. The apple buyer was
a factor, and most important one, in
every community, and his trips of in
vestigation among the orchards at
various periods of the season were
subjects of animated discussion at the
informal and incidental evening meet
ings of the farmers at the stores and
postoffice.
In September and October the har-
vesting of the apples went forward.
and the weeks given mp thereto made
up period of strenuous exertion,
which is another way of repeating my
farmer friends assertion. that apple
picking is the "drivingest time in the
hull year.
To be good apple picker man had
to know just how to put up long lad
ders quickly and securely. He had to
know just how and where to place his
ladder so that he could clear a tree
without having to take time to move
oftener than was absolutely necessary.
ii he could tell almost instinctively
what apples were marketable and what
were not, so as to leave the latter to
be shaken off for cider making later,
he was just as much more valuable to
his employer, for the time of the
packer was valuable, and the fewer
apples he had to throw out in putting
them into the barrel the more he could
put up in day
have used the past tense in what
have had to say about apples and ap-
pie picking, but the orchards are still
there and so are the apples and the
barrels, and doubtless plenty of pretty
girls help in barreling the apples these
later years the same as they used to.
But the big prices and large profits of
apple raising are no more, and, unfor-
tunately for the farmers this hard
year, the crop is light one in many
sections. New York Advertiser,