Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1915-04-15
COUNTY
AS APPLE: |:
CENTER
By Frederic Cranefeld, Secretary State
Horticulture Society.

County is long one but | do not pro-
pose to tell all of it for people as rule
don t care to read ancient history.
Sank county has long and honorable
record in fruit growing. It's apples have
helped to make Wisconsin famous as a
fruit growing state at fairs and exposi-
tions for forty years or more. Apples
of the highest quality have been grown
and are grown on the clay ridges IF
Sank county.
Many of the pioneers in fruit grow
ing who laid the foundations for big
ger and better horticulture in Wiscon-
sin were from Sank county.
So much for fine past, what of the
present and the.future? Looking back
ward is profitless pastime unless it
gives us inspiration or a clearer COM
prehension of what lies ahead of us.
Have the people Of Sank county with
natural advantages in fruit growing
surpassed by no other county Of Wis
consin, made the best possible use of
their opportunities? | am afraid that
they have not.
We were fifty years getting ready to
raise fruit in Wisconsin, testing and
originating varieties, testing sells and
climate and laid a splendid foundation.
During the past ten years we have be-
gun to build the superstructure; to de-
velop commercial fruit growing. Fer
fifty years we raised apples for home
use and for fairs with but few to sell.
Until 1901 there was no orchard in
the state of over 20 acres and only one
that large; until 1908 none over 40 acres.
Now there are IN Door county 1900 acres
of fruit, in Bayfield, county 1000 acres,
in Crawford county 1000 acres, all on
commercial basis.
How many acres of commercial or
chard in Sank county? How many or
chards of over 20 acres each? Here is
guess; that there are in Sank county,
only IA men who are really interested
in the raising of apples as a business;
men who make of it an important part
of their work and who derive from it a
greater income than from anything else
that they are doing; that these men own
or control less than $50 acres of or
chards. Not very good showing for q
county that has been known as a fruit
enter for fifty years; land county that
has been known as fruit center for
fifty years; and a county that possesses
advantages superior to those of almost
any other section of Wisconsin.
1t is true that in addition to these
fourteen orchards there are hundreds
of other orchards aggregating. thousands
of acres that produce every other year
thousands of bushels of apples, some of
which bring the growers Is to 80 cents
bushel but mostly the apples go to
waste. In 1913 | saw in dozens Of Sank
county orchards splendid Wealthy and
other apples rotting on the ground
That kind of apple raising adds neither
to the profit nor the prestige of the
county. Why is it SO? Because the bust
ness is not carried on in a systematic
and business like way; because Sank
county has farm orchards instead of
commercial orchards.
These farm orchards of one to five
acres have mostly been planted as
side line to general farming and with
few exceptions treated as side lines.
The average farmer with one to two
hundred apple trees is unfamiliar with
the best orchard practice and his or
chard rarely produces first class fruit
and when the crop comes he is even
more unfamiliar with the selling game.
This is not one-half the story of small
farm orchards nor need the rest be told.
Thousands of barrels of apples will un-
doubtedly by marketed in Baraboo and
Reedsburg next September from these
farm orchards. These will bring the
grower about Is cents bushel, the
buyer will get about 50 cents a barrel
profit and the consumer will usually get
stung. Nobody is making any money
and nobody is happy. Owing to the ne
elected conditions of these small orch
ards, there will be no fruit worth men
tioning in 1916 as there was none in
1914.
Also there will be about a dozen men
around Baraboo who will each make a
nice profit from their orchards. They are
in the apple game for business and not
as a side line. Their orchards will be
cultivated, pruned and sprayed: they
will buy barrels by the car load and do
their own packing and shipping. They
are commercial orchard men.
Sank County, after fifty years ex-
perience in raising apples ought to be
producing st least half a million bar
rels of good apples every year instead
of 100 bushels for the state fair and
twenty thousand barrels for market as