Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 November 1900 — GREAT YIELD OF APPLES. [ARTICLE]

GREAT YIELD OF APPLES.

Immense Quantities Grown Annually in the United States. It is an established fact that the United States now holds the record for rapid developments of fruit industries, such as the growing of oranges and lemons, peaches and grapes. As a nation we eat more fruit than any other, and grow considerably more than we eat. Eighty millions of dollars a year 4s the figure for strawberries alone. A hundred millions would scarcely cover the value of ail the grapes marketed. Peaches we raise in astonishing quantities, in orchards containing as many as 300,000 trees, but our banner crop, so far as fruit is concerned, is apples. We have produced as many as 210,000,000 barrels in a single season, and have sold as high as 3,000.0000 barrels in England alone. We carry in cold storage every winter anywhere from 6*000,000 to 10,000,000 barrels of the crop of the season before, in order to secure better prices. Ships weigh anchor in New York, three at a time, in a single week, bearing apples to Europe. Indeed, it is one of the greatest industries the country has ever witnessed, and promises to take rank as the chief fruit crop of the world. Milis County, and, indeed, all the southwestern section of lowa, is truly a wonderful apple country, but not much more important than one of a score of regions in various parts of the country which produces apples. In that county alone there are over 900,000 trees, averaging at the lowest ten bushels a tree ]>er annum. One hundred and fifty thousand of these®trees are in one orchard. 'j*he total output is close on to 3,000,000 barrels, or enough to supply the present American sale to England. New York’, however, has two counties, much smaller than Mills, which do even better than this, and as a State it raises three times as many apples as lowa. The counties referred to are Niagara and Orleans, in the western tier, which together raise 7,000,000 barrels of the best kind of market apples. All through this area are orchards holding 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, and occasionally 100,000 trees, which in blossoming make of the roadside a paradise. How They Order Clothes. “The retail merchants of this place have'been gradually building up a very considerable trade with the City of Mexico,” remarked a New Orleans business man. “I know It seems a far cry from here to the capital of the sister republic, but somehow or other trade has drifted in this direction without any special effort on the part of our local houses. The ready-made clothing people get the larger share of it and some of the orders they receive from individuals are very amusing. “Some time ago a well-to-do native wrote for several suits and. to insure a good fit, sent this description. ‘I am 42 years old, weigh 120 pounds, dark complexion, notary public." By way of reply the order clerk told him that the specifications were very interesting and exhaustive, but as a matter of form the house would be glad to have him till out the inclosed measurement blank. '"Another worthy suCjcct of President Diaz sent an order for rather a curious outfit, which he said was intended for bis brother. It consisted of a black suit, with one white shirt, black tje. collar, cuffs and a pair of patent leather shoes. The day following its receipt a telegram arrived saying: ‘Dp not send thingsj brother is getting better.’ It turned out afterward Utat the brother had beep seriously ill ntitl the garmeiils Were intended to array him for the tomb. This upset the theory of one of the clerks, who had suggested that maybe the brother was going to be hanged and had been unexpectedly reprived. I am glad to say that the gentleman eutirely recovered and celebrated his return to health by ordering a nobby pearl-gray business suit.”- New Orleans TiniesDemocrat.