The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1901-12-19

II least interested in agricul-
~ tural matters know to be our
GzaASA important American crops.
But to. many it will be news to learn
that the average yearly yield of apples
| is of more value than the average year
| ly yield of cotton, that seldom wheat
/ outranks it in value, that corn is the
only cereal it has failed to distance.
1t is impossible to get satisfac-
tory estimate of the apple crop be-
cause of the inability to find out ex-
| actly how much is reserved for home
| use. The estimate for 1900 is given
as 215,OOO,OOO barrels. At an average
price of two dollars barrel the value
of the crop would be $43O,000,000,
| neat sum, making the faEciful name
King of American Friuts," seem not
| far out of the way.
A fruit of SO great monetary value,
| SO pleasing to the palate, so health
| full, deserves at least passing notice at
the hands of the historian, and some
little attention has been given it.
Musty records and yellow leaves of ir-
| regularly kept but invaluable old
| diaries give us little idea of the evo
luton of the American apple. Capt.
| John Smith bears witness that our
| acid friend, the crabapple, he found
| growing here when first he set foot
| on American soil. In 1922 the Virginia
| company sent to jamestown garden
seeds and scions of fruit trees, and in
1929 Smith relates that ''some have
planted that prospered exceedingly"
of apples, pears, peaches, apricots,
vines, figs and other fruit. In 1647 the
| apple is recorded as grated on wild
stockA in Virginia. In 1856 William
Fitzhugh, describing his own planta-
| ton, mentions 'a large orchard of
$500 apple trees, most grated, we'll
fenced with locust fence" Probably
| it is safe to say that by the close of the
seventeenth century the majority of
| Virginia plantations were enriched by
orchards of apple, peach, plum, april
| cot and ounce.
| We have been wont to think of New
England as the home of the apple, and
many old records bear witness that
|
dunn dated March 16, 1929, tells that
provision was made to send to New
England from the home land "stones
of all sorts of fruits, as peaches,
| plums, filberts, cherries, pear, apple,
| ounce kernels and pomegranates."
John Josslyn in 1859 was regaled with
half score of very fair pippins which
were brought from Governors island,
and he tells later, during his sojourn
from 1663-75, that "the country is re-
plenished with fair and large or
chards;" says: 81 have observed with
admiration that the kernels sown or
| the succors planted produce as fair
and good fruit without grating s the
| tree from whence they are taken"
And Mr.. Joslyn further writes that one
Mr.. Wolcott. of Connecticut colony,
boasted to him of making 500 hogs
| heads of cider from his own orchard
in one year, and, as Mr.. Wolcott was a
magistrate, it is to be hoped he was
veracious.
A writer by the name of Dudley re-
ports in 1926: "Our apples are with
out doubt as good as those of England,
and much fairer to look to. Our people
Of late years have run so much upon
orchards that in village near Boston,
consisting of about Forty Families,
| they make near Ten Thousand Barrels
| (of cider)."
The apple moved westward with
the Frenchmen, when they began to