Chapter 1

THE OUTLOOK FOR THE GROWING OF APPLES

The apple has long been the most popular of our tree fruits, but the last few years have seen a steady growth in its appreciation and use. This is probably due in a large measure to a better knowledge of its value and to the development of new methods of preparation for consumption. Few fruits can be utilized in as many ways as can the apple. In addition to the common use of the fresh fruit out of hand and of the fresh, sweet juice as cider, this "King of Fruits" can be cooked, baked, dried, canned, and made into jellies and other appetizing dishes, to enumerate all of which would be to prepare a list pages long. Few who have tasted once want to be without their apple sauce and apple pies in season, not to mention the crisp, juicy specimens to eat out of hand by the open fireplace in the long winter evenings. Apples thus served call up pleasant memories to most of us, but only recently have the culinary possibilities of the apple, especially as a dessert fruit, been fully realized.

It is doubtless this realization of its great adaptability, together with its long season, which have brought the apple into so great demand of late. It is possible to have apples on the table in some form the year round. The first summer apples are almost always with us before the bottom of the Russet barrel is reached. Or, should the fresh fruit be too expensive or for some reason fail altogether, the housewife can fall back on the canned and dried fruit which are almost as good.

The tendency in the price of this staple fruit has been constantly upward during the last decade. Many people are greatly surprised when the fact that apples cost more than oranges is called to their attention. The increase in consumption, due to the greater variety of ways of preparing the apple for use, has undoubtedly been an important factor in this higher price. But at least an equally important factor is the marked decrease in the supply of this fruit. To those who are not familiar with the facts, the great falling off in production which the figures show will be no less than startling.

PRODUCTION OF APPLES IN BARRELS IN THE UNITED STATES FROM 1896 TO 1910

1896 69,070,000 1897 41,530,000 1898 28,570,000 1899 37,460,000 1900 56,820,000 ----------- Total crop for five years 233,450,000 Average crop for five years 46,690,000 1901 26,970,000 1902 46,625,000 1903 42,626,000 1904 45,360,000 1905 24,310,000 ------------ Total crop for five years 185,891,000 Average crop for five years 37,178,200 1906 38,280,000 1907 29,540,000 1908 25,850,000 1909 25,415,000 1910 23,825,000 Total crop for five years 142,910,000 ------------ Average crop for five years 28,582,000

Estimates of 1896, 1897, and 1898 from "Better Fruit," Vol. 5, No. 5. All other years from the estimates of the "American Agriculturist."

It will thus be seen that the apple crop of 1910 was 45,245,000 barrels less than that of 1896, and that during the whole period of fifteen years the decline has been regular. The average annual crop of the five year period ending with 1905 was 9,511,800 barrels less than the average annual crop of the preceding five years ending with 1900, and correspondingly the annual average crop of the last five years, ending with 1910, was 8,596,200 barrels less than that of the second five year period. Comparing the first and the last five year periods, we find that the crop of the last was 18,108,000 barrels less than that of the first. These facts alone are enough to explain the higher price of this fruit during the last ten years.

HEAVY PLANTINGS.--Moreover, it should be further noted that this falling off in the apple crop has been in the face of the heaviest plantings ever known in this country. During the last ten years old fruit growing regions like western New York have practically doubled their orchard plantings. Careful figures gathered by the New York State Agricultural College in an orchard survey of Monroe County show that 4,972 more trees (21,289 in all) were planted in one representative township during the five year period from 1904 to 1908 inclusive than were ever planted in any other equal period in its history. New fruit regions like the Northwestern States and a large part of the Shenandoah valley of Virginia have been developed by heavy plantings. These three are all great commercial sections. To them we might add thousands of orchards which are scattered all over the Northern and Eastern States, from Michigan to Maine and from Maine to north Georgia.

It is doubtful, however, if these scattered plantings have made good the older trees which have died out. Scarcely a season passes that hundreds of these old veteran trees are not blown down or badly broken. Every wind takes its toll. After one of these windstorms in Southern New York the writer estimated that at least twenty per cent of all the standing old apple trees had been destroyed or badly broken. In the commercial regions only a small part of the new plantings have yet come to bearing and even here these probably do not much more than make good the losses of old trees. So that on the whole, heavy as our plantings have been, it is extremely doubtful if they have very much more than made good the losses of the older trees throughout the country. It is a fact worthy of note that this talk of over-planting the apple has been going on for over thirty years, and while the timid ones talked those who had faith in the business and the courage of their convictions planted apples and reaped golden harvests while their neighbors still talked of over-planting.

Whether or not it is true that we have over-planted the apple, it must be admitted that at the present time the demand is so much greater than the supply that the poorer of our people cannot afford to use apples commonly, and that no class of farmer in the Northeastern States is more prosperous than the fruit growers. The new plantings must of necessity begin to bear and become factors in the market very slowly. Meanwhile the great opportunity of the present lies in making the most possible out of the older orchards which are already in bearing. Practically all of these old farm orchards which can present a fairly clean bill of health, and in which the varieties are desirable, can with a small amount of well directed effort be put to work at once and during the next ten years or more of their life time, they may be made to add a substantial income to that of the general farm. Now is a time of opportunity for the owner of the small farm apple orchard.

FUTURE OF APPLE GROWING.--In the writer's opinion the future of apple growing in the United States is likely to shape itself largely in the great commercial regions. As these become more and more developed and as the industry becomes more specialized the farmer who is merely growing apples as a side line, except where he is delivering directly to a special or a local market, will be crowded out. Here as elsewhere it will be a case of the survival of the fittest. In the production of apples commercially those growers who can produce the best article the most cheaply are bound to win out in the end.

It would, therefore, seem to be advisable for the general farmer to plant apples only under two conditions; first, when he has a very favorable location and site and plants heavily enough to make it worth while to have the equipment and skilled labor necessary to make the enterprise a success, and second, when he can market his fruit directly in a local market. It would appear that the immediate future of apple growing in the United States lies in the small farm orchard as well as in the commercial orchards, but that the more distant future lies in the commercial orchard except where special conditions surround the farm.