The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1910-11-10
Annh Riurr 0lartrr
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APPLES, HERE AND THERE.

The apple crop in some sections of
the Middle West is a failure. This is
notably true in Kansas-the freak
state where the yield of the soil is
either phenomenaly large, swamping
all transportation facilities, or dis
couragingly meager.
In illinois it is said that the apple
crop is larger than usual, but, it is
added, there is no market for the pro-
duct, except at prices that will not
pay for picking and shipping, This,
at first thought, is astounding, if true,
for with short crop of apples in
states Immediately west Of the
Missouri River, and the great cities of
Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City in
the market belt Of the Mississippi
Valley to be supplied, it would seem
that large apple yield in Illinois
would mean substantial profits to
orchardists.
IHC bAOublCJ IO hOuDJt 10 III JHb
quality of the apples grown. Com
paratively speaking, growers do not
raise apples there. That is to say,
the scientific principles of apple-grow-
ing have not been applied to the
orchards of the eastern valley Of the
Mississippi. The gnarled trees in
many orchard tracts have fought for
their lives, unaided by the farmer, for
years against the bitter Winters and
Summer droughts of that region; in
their neglected condition they bear but
gnarly, grabbed fruit. Pruning, as
known to the horticultursts of the
Pacific Northwest, is unknown there
spraying is too much trouble to the
farmer who depends for the returns
from his labors upon the corn yield.
The apple crop is not the crop sought
for by thesesfarmers. Corn, pork and
wheat and dairy products they can
depend upon and time SIS not wasted
on apples.
Again, those Eastern farmers have |
not learned and, indeed, have never
had the incentive to learn, how to put
up fancy pack Of apples such as car
ries buyers off their feet, " so to speak,
with eagerness to buy, and makes the
mouths water of the dwellers of New
York, to the tune Of 25 cents per apple
- -cheerfully paid. This art was de-
veloped upon the Pacific Coast, pri-
marily at Hood River, though every
apple-growing section of Oregon and
Washington now ends the fancy
pack in carload lots to Eastern mar.
kets.
For these reasons, apple-growing
pays and will continue to pay, in the
Pacific Northwest. First, we have
climate in which highly cultivated and :
lence susceptible orchard trees do not
Vinter-kill. Next, we have methods
If cultivating, pruning, spraying,
thinning, picking and packing, reduced ;
each in its line to science. Domina-
ling all is the enthusiasm that these
and their results in fine,
'ightly and toothsome fruit and in sud
len fortunes, has developed. {
1t is not surprising, therefore, that
oregon apples find ready and profitable ,
markets in Eastern cities, while
'armers of Illinois complain that there
s no money in apples, content them
selves with marketing a few barrels
1T most in good apple year and turn {
heir hogs into the orchard to finish
.he disposal :of the crop. For obvious
reasons this is true, for reasons equally
obvious the apple crop is profitable in
Oregon. While tons of apples of inferior
grade-for lack of hogs to eat them
rot upon the ground in Oregon orchards
every year, only the cream of the crop
being sent to the market, there are yet
other tons and tons that find their way
10 purchasers at high prices through
The medium of the fancy pack.
Pessimists say that this cannot last,
but orchardsts of the Pacific North
vest do not share this opinion. On
The contrary, they see one prosperous
year following another in the apple in
iustry, in each one if not fortune, u
90 Orauonian