The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1903-11-19

10000 apple and 5000 pear trees There
are two additional orchards in whic ?
Mr.. McNair is interested. In all he
owns part interest in $1,000 apple
trees and is many times millionaire.
He commenced in 1893 growing fruit on
small scale.
Another large fruit farm is situated
at Koshkonog and is managed by I. NJ.
Culver This property contains "a, 900
bearing fruit trees.
The income from the fruit sold along
the Ozark slopes is conservatively esti-
mated at 500 ,000, 900 every year that the
cropis only reasonably good. There has not
been afruit failure in Northwest Arkan-
sas during the past % years so serious as
the present one, and only two failures
when less than three quarters of the
crop was gathered. Consequently the
people are all we'll to do--that is, the
fruit growing element-and they can
we'll afford to miss the crop this year.
This year in the vicinity of Rogers
about 5000 acres of mountain land have
been cut up into small tracts and plant
ed in trees. This land sold from $3.50
to IS per acre. After the orchard has once
started to bear-five or six years later
the same land is worth 500 per acre.
About 50apple trees are planted to each
acre. To put out an orchard costs about
$25 per acre. For five years one should
not expect any returns. The crop in the
sixth year, if the season is a good one,
will pay for the land, the total expense
and good rate of interest during the in
terval. The remaining years, without
much additional labor or expense, the
fruit orchard brings man good liv-
ing.
The apples run two or three barrels
per tree and are worth oman average 81. 80
per barrel. The profit per barrel is S5
per cent. An ordinary car of peaches
holds 800 crates worth 81 per crate. The
grower makes about 80 cents on each
crate. Peaches run from two to three
hundred crates per acre. J. S. Miller
of Rogers, last year, made $500 from two
acres of peaches, the trees being five
years old.
So remunerative has been the orchard
industry in the Ozark fruit belt in re-
cent years that thousands of Northern
fruit growers are going into this sec
ton every fall and buying land to plant
in trees. Each year sees the acreage
increased and it is estimated that when
all the vacant land suitable for orchards
has been planted and fruit commences
to bear the income of these orchards
will amount to 5000, 100000 per annum.
The ground must be subdued, however
and only those who understand fruit
growing may expect to succeed
in the Ozark country. In winter the
climate is usually mild, and such kill
ing froSt as laid all the fruit buds in the
shade last spring is usually unknown.
In Benton and Washington counties,
Ark, the greatest fruit growing counties
in the state, there are thousands of acres
of government land that may be had
free. There are a number OF brandy
distilleries, grape crushers and wine
cellars scattered all through this Sec
ton. A peach brandy distillery situated
at Bentonville turns out five hundred
gallons of peach brandy per day in sea-
son, while at the Vinda grape vineyard
near here there are $500 gallons of wine
stored away, made from grapes grown
on the hillsides during the last five
years.
Fully $4,000 orchards owned by sepa-
rate individuals are found in this famous
Ozark fruit belt, being the greatest or
chard community in the West, if not in
the United States. During good sea-
son hundreds of thousands OF persons
are working in the orchards and at the
railway stations shipping the fruit.