Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 72, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1909 — APPLES OF THE NORTHWEST. [ARTICLE]

APPLES OF THE NORTHWEST.

Enormous Crop Purchased For Eastsm and European Markets. Contracts bare been closed in Spokane, Wash., by an eastern firm for more than SOOO,OOO worth of Washington and Oregon apples for eastern and European trade, and the purchaser expects to reach the $1,000,000 mark before returning home after looking over the orchards in central Idaho and western Montana. While in Spokane he bought the entire output of first and second grades grown in the Meadow lake orchards, estimated at 80,000 boxes, previous to which he contracted for 90,000 boxes in the Hood river and Mosler districts in Oregon, buying ■also 35,000 boxes from the Dumas orchards at Walla Walla, Wash., and 15,000 boxes from the orchards at Garfield, Wash. The purchaser said the prices received by the growers in the Hood river •district were the highest ever paid for their fruit. His purchases there aggregated more than $200,000, and he paid as high as $2.50 a box, or 5 cents -a pound. He also paid $2.50 and in several instances $2.75 a box for Washington apples Of the first grade. Much of the superiority of the west•ern apple over the product of the New York districts is in the picking and packing. Growers fully understand these advantages, and that is where they are wise. Their fruit is picked .ripe and carefully graded and honestly packed, the result being that buyers are pleased. There is not the least danger that the growers in the northwest will overdo the apple Industry. They could not do that even by doubling or trebling the present orchard area. The apple crop of thei United States was about 1 67,000,000 barrels in 1896, and in no year since then has it amounted to more than 85,000,000 barrels. The present crop will not reach that figure. When it Is considered that the population of the United States has increased probably by 20,000,000 since 1896, while the apple production has fallen from 67,000,000 to 85,000,000 bar-

rels, it can be readily seen that it is out of question to think that the apple growers in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Colorado can oversupply the ever increasing market.