The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1907-06-17
BIC PROFITS
IN FRUIT FARMS
Well known Sunnyside Authority
On Fruitgrowing Gives Allur-
ing Figures.

| following fruit facts:
The remarkable profits made from
the fruit raised on its irrigated lands
have centered the attention of the
| whole country upon the state of
| Washington. 1t is generally sup
posed that a producing mine is de-
cidedly profitable thing, but the ac-
tual returns derived by fruit growers
in the parts of Washington, Oregon
| and Idaho in the sections possessing
the proper soil and climate for grow
ing the fancy, high-priced CONNER
cial varieties of fruit have far ex-
ceeded the most sanguine expecta-
tions of their owners.
Over in Minnesota and Dakota, in
an ordinary year of fair crops, a
profit of $3.50 or $500 for each quar-
ter section of 100 acres is considered
to be a pretty good thing. In fact,
the net returns from such a farm are
considerably apt to be below than
above these figures.
| Command Fancy Prices.
In the Rogue river and Hood river
districts of Oregon, in the Yakima
valley of Washington and along the
Columbia river, even as far up it's
valley as Kettle Falls, along the
Okanogan valley and up the Snake
river to Lewiston, Idaho, and gen.
orally throughout the warmer Sec
tions, are produced these fruits of a
bloom, quality and appearance which
five times as high a price in the
| great fruit markets of the world as
the best commercial apples produced
in Michigan, New York state or the
Ozark regions of the country east of
the Rocky mountains. While the
| Minnesota and Dakota wheat raiser
gets profit of 81 to S. per acre
from his grain crops, the Yakima
Columbia or Snake river orchardist
where he has taken care to plant
the proper varieties of fruits and has
given them intelligent care-thinks
nothing of making a clear net profit
of from $3.50 to $1,000 per acre in a
single year from his marvellous fruit,
which may well be compared to the
golden apples of mythology.
| When the first promoters of irri-
CATION throughout the arid part of
the state of Washington struggled
year after year to install irrigation
upon the marvelously fertile sage
brush arid lands they themselves lit
tie estimated the enormously prof
liable industry which would follow
as result Of their pioneering of the
fields of irrigation.
| In Demand in London.
Washington apples have already
acquired such a reputation in the
great cities of the world that it is
an established thing for single ap-
pie from these irrigated districts to
sell for from 10 to 25 cents in the
fruit stands of New York city or
London, and upon the tables of high
class hotels like the Waldorf-AstOria
or Netherlands in New York and the
Savoy and other great hotels of the
city of London the chefs of these
great hotels will have Washington
apples and other fruits for their
high priced, luxurious customers, no
matter what the cost.
1t is an instructive lesson in the
control of man over nature when We
see an acre of arid, dusty, powdery,
drouth-stricken soil worth possibly
| so cents G" 81 an acre, turned by
irrigation irto the most valuable pro-
'ducing land upon the globe.
In an irrigation district started
in 1895 in the state of Washington
| the land was purchased for from 81
to Sc or S. an acre. 1t was called
starvation flat because the land
was so dry and apparently worthless
that nothing would grow upon it. A
| far-seeing r7an of indomitable ener-
| gy interest ID eastern capital and
placed IRRIGATION upon this land The
result is that today this compara-
lively small tract is covered with
fruit farms and homes so thick it is
practically a city and the land has
now a ready sale at from $500 to
$1,000 per acre.
Lands Advance in Price.
| Another irrigated district on the
Columbia river has seen the valua-
,tion of fruit lands rise from $3.50 per
acre in 1903 to $500. to $4,000 per
acre in 1907. But to obtain these