The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1920-08-20
RICA'S APPLE
CROP IS WORTH
$30o,OoO,OOO
WASHINGTON LEADS EVERY
STATE IN THE UNION IN.THE
PRODUCTION OF APPLES; NEW
YORK SECOND ON LIST.
BY H. o. Bishop.


full spring day, many thousands OF
years ago. when fair young maid
en--your very great grandma-and a
fine husky young bachelor-your very
great grandpa-met and INTRODUCED
themselves to each other in a fasci-
mating locality which has since be-
come the worlds best advertised or
chard, apples have been the most
popular fruit known to mankind the
world over.
Apples are something that every
body eats. One of the earliest desir-
es of child is to climb a tree and
eat green apple. Apple eating has
grown to be an almost daily habit
with all Americans.
"An apple a day keeps the doctor
away" is an age-old proverb that now
seems to be taken seriously by prac-
tically the entire populace. Old folks
whose teeth have become so few and
far between as to make the biting
and chewing of an apple impossible
no longer bemoan that unhappy con-
dition of affairs; they merely smile
slyly, convert their beloved fruit into
apple sauce, and satisfy their apple
yearning appetites as of yore.
Apple pies and apple dumplings-
once known to fame only as New
England breakfast food-can now be
found daily on dining tables from the
McAdoo Long Island home to HI
rams Frisco bungalow.
As remarked above. everybody eats
apples. but strange to say. compara-
lively few people know anything
about the immensity of the annual
crop in the United States or in what
states the bulk of them are produced
This general lack of knowledge is
likewise true of the American crop
of peaches and pears.
Mr.. Leon NJ. Estabrook chief #
the Bureau of Crop Estimates of the
United States Department of Agri-
culture, has given me some informa-
ton of the subject of apples, peach
es and pears that is so amazing as tc
sound more like romance than plain
facts.
According to carefully gathered
figures sent to Washington by his
corps of expert fruit specialists scat
tered throughout the country, Mr.
Estabrook estimates that the apple
crop of 1920 will be 1913 1856 900 bush.
els, as compared with only 147,457,00t
bushels last year-an increase of 81 ;.
50S.000 bushels.
About one-half of the apple pro
| duction is known as the commercial
crop, being that portion retailed t,
the public. The other half of the to
tai production is consumed in the
vicinities where raised.
1t is estimated that the value OF
the apple crop to the farmers of the
country in 1919 was 75,463,000. o.
course the amount paid by the apple
eaters of the country exceeded that
amount by many millions of dollars
because apples, like all other farm
commodities, have a habit of greatly
advancing in price between the time
they leave the farmer and the time
they are offered for sale at grocell
| stores and fruit stands in the town,
and cities.
Can you imagine what tremen
dous quantity of apples 1896, ,00(
bushels are? Taking it on an aver
age, there are 175 apples to tho
bushel. That means a total of al
most 35 billion individual apples. i
they were to be equally divide,
among the hundred million people o
this country it would give a Fraction
more than 34S 10 each of them-in
cluding the wee babies whose only
use for them would be to admir-.
their color or roll them across tn,
floor.
If all these apples were place,
side by side, they would cover a dis
tance of million and ahalf miles.
To the average American citizei
Washington simply means lumber
fish and Senator Miles Poindextel
Yet that state leads all others il
raising aples.
Most people think there's nothini
TO New York except Tammany Hall
Sing Sing, Cornell University, A
Smith and perpetual longshoremen'
strikes. 1t is a fact. however, tha
the Empire State is second in apples
California, with a national reputa
tion for native sons, oranges. earth
quakes, movie actresses and voters
is third in the running.
Virginia, the beautiful and ancien