San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1925-12-23
APPLES GROWN in NEARLY
EVERY COUNTRY ON EARTH

the insides were almost full of hard,
yellow seeds. You probably thought
that these hawes or thorn-apples were
a very poor substitute for the big
juicy, red apples your grocer sells,
but did you stop to think that these
seedy little fellows are the parents,
the great-great-great-grandaddies of
our fine apples Of today?
HALVES WILL DO.
There is an old saying that "when
apples fail, the hawes will do" which
means that there were times in this
country when frost or insects or other
blights destroyed most of the cultivat-
ed apple crop, and then folks had to
eat thorn-apples. That was in the
days when apples were the only fruit
that could be kept after harvest time.
They we're practically the only fresh
fruit available during the long winter
months, and you have learned how i'm
portant it is to life and health to have
something fresh and green to eat with
meats, bread and other food, so it is
no wonder that the early settlers gath
cred and stored the fruit of the haw-
thorne tree when their orchards failed
to give them a supply Of apples.
We have not had an apple crop
failure in America in a good many
years. in fact, apples are now grown
in so many different sections and I'M
der so many different weather and soil
conditions that n complete failure is
impossible. If the buds. blossoms or
young apples freeze in one section of
the country, we are sure that there
will be good fruit on the trees in an
other section, and so We are sure of
apples Of some sort every fall, and the
supply has grown so big that there
are usually enough to put some in
storage for use during the winter and
until spring brings strawberries and
other fresh fruits to take their place.
MATTER OF COURSE
We have come to look upon good
apples as q matter of course. When |
we want them-and we want them al |
most every day-sll we have to do is
to phone the grocer or visit the fruit |
stand, and there they are-fresh, ripe, |
sound and ready for us. Some come |
in snug wooden boxes and bushel bask- |
cts from far away orchards on the |
slopes of the mountain ranges nj |
Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, |
Utah, Colorado and even British Co |
lumbia. Some come in barrels from |
the mid-western and central states, |
from the Ozarks in the Southwest, |
from the picturesque valleys Of Vir- |
sinia and Pennsylvania, from the Great |
Lakes region and from the historic
Of New York state and New
England.
We take good apples from granted.
just as we take many other things Of |
life for granted, but do we ever stop
to consider the work, the worry, the
disappointment and the loss that often
forms part of the task Of bringing the
fruit to us? When we look back at
the thorn-apple, and try to trace its
story down through the hundreds of
years of work and cultivation that
have been necessary to bring about
he gloriously favored fruit OF today,
We must realize that somebody has
1een working continuously and tire
essly to give MS the best the orchard
an produce. Nature gave man the ap-
bic, but man has found ways 10 i'm
prove it until we know it as some
hing almost entirely different from its
,arly ancestor.
APPLES EVERYWHERE.
Apples grow in every state in the
Union and in almost every country
IN earth. North America produces by
ar the largest shares Of all apples
crown, and we are able each year to
send some Of our finest fruit across
he seas to people in other countries
where they do not grow the fine
that are so familiar to us.
england grows a great many apples
Il her own. In fact, many Of the best
in this country were brought
lere from England in the days Of the
,arly colonies, but the English people
ire the largest buyers Of American
lpples abroad, taking millions Of bal-
els and boxes each year. Australia
ind South Africa also grow fine
lpples, and some Of these are sold in
England. As the Australian and South
african harvest is about six months
arlier than our own, England has
upply Of apples all the year around.
In the early days, apples were
,rjwn by the colonists in New Eng
and and Virginia. As settlers pushed
heir way westward into what was
hen the wilderness OF Pennsylvania
Jhio, Indiana, Illinois and other ter
-itOry in the great Mississippi Valley.
hey carried seeds and shoots Of their
v.Iu