The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1910-04-01
APPLE mad OREGON"
Eyes of the Whole World Are Upon
the Apple Growers of the
Northwest.

Apple mad are Oregon and washing
ton. Pomona at the present moment
ls dndlsputably the best loved god
dess in the northwestern Pantheon
and that, too, where lumber talks in
millions and billions and Fisheries
and agriculture and the thousand 9th
er industries by which men live and
prosper, are tinting the sky with pe-
cuniary promise" The stories OF fruit
culture, while true, real like the nc
ton of boomers, and the profits sound
equally unreal. Last year the Oregon
apple grower sold large share Of his
harvest at SO a box of forty eight an
Piles, and this year the market was
even higher. 1t seems incredible TO
read that thrifty Scots in Glasgow
and Aberdeen pay 20 and 80 shiIlings
a box for Newton pippins from Oregon
and yet that is a fact of commercial
record and 1t is equally unreal to read
OF the tremendous values in land.
Slopes a few years ago covered with
fir timber, sold by lavish government,
timber and all, to homesteaders for
So an acre, are covered with Young
apple trees yielding their owners from
$500 to $1,000 an acre; sometimes more
1t is common thing to see $2OC an
acre paid for this land after the timber
has been removed but with the stunnus
and general debris of logging opera :
lions still covering the ground. An
expenditure of from SIS to 500 e. re-
CURED before the young fruit trees can
be set out, and then one must wait
four years before these trees yield
fruit. And yet there are young or
chards in the Yakima and Wenatchee
valleys in Washington, once accour ted
worthless, now selling readily at So
600 and $4,000 an acre from which the
buyer nets so per cent the first wear
after his purchase. The apples from
the best of these districts command
from $3.50 to $3.50 box at the railway
platform while the cost of production
and packing is about So cents.
This apple madness is not confined
to the apple grower, but 1t permeates
every stratum of society, and every
body is more or less infected with
appleitis." In most business houses
in Portland and Seattle apples are on
exhibition in the Office. and the bust
ness man is more ready to talk san
pie" than anything which more nearly
200 business men In Portland alone
who own Ave, ten, twenty or
thirty acres of apple land in the Hood
river valley or elsewhere. Some are
holding for speculative purposes, but
lawyers and merchants and ali kinds
of people have their little places farm
ed by an agent, and hold to present
Jobs till the mature trees shall war
rant them in giving their sole atten-
tiol thereto. One Of the largest APP
pie growers in the Hood river valley |
district worked for years for a railway |
company at $125 month, and he has
refused $4,000 for his ap-
pie orchards, which net him SIS, 900 a |
year.
IT is the boast of the Hood river val |
ey that a bad apple can no more leave |
the valley than a camel can pass
through the eye of a needle. Mo ar 1
chard man can take his fruit else
where for shipment. No man in the
district can pack his own apples, but
when the picking Is under way and
thousands of boxes have been gathered
n the growers apple house, cold
storage plant, each box is numbered /
o correspond to the number held by /
he grower, record is made be its
contents. and it is inspected and mar
Ieted under direction OF the growers,
Inion. Says Mr. Mumford:
Where the box lis bound or. ordiu-
lrily, the grower has no notion
neither does he care The union fInds
he market. conducts the sale and paws
lin for his apples at the platform.
md its stamp on any box Ii d guar
gnty of perfection. when q Russian
olonel in Vladivostock finds d blennish
N p Hood river apple, the union de-
lucts the price of its box from It's
Ill against the conEignee. lit is the i,
roast OF these northwestern orchard /,
men that any apples they ship can be
AIKEN from the box and eaten IN the
ark. No worms" Ut is the standard
t quality and the trustworthiness ar
he guaranty that makes the price.
he apple crops OF Hood river, Yakima.
Venatchee and lot of other places, B
re bought on the trees, in advance
{ the harvest, by dealers In New york
london, Hongkong and nurnber1Ass
Their cities, without the sending Of any i
gent to inspect their quality. A name
or reliability III indeed an asset n
vorth."-J. Il Munford Ia Harper's
Weekly