Business & Finance: A is for Apple

In convention in Chicago last week gathered the men who control the third largest U. S. unmanufactured crop export. Largest is cotton, next is tobacco and third is the humble apple. To safeguard this precious fruit the International Apple Association met for the first time 42 years ago in Chicago’s Hotel Sherman. Last week, 1,400 strong, the applemen were back at the Sherman with apple problems on their minds, Les Apple Trees Glacé on their tables and on their program plans for using the saga of Johnny Appleseed as a promotion scheme.

The patron saint of U. S. applemen, Johnny Appleseed, whose real name was Jonathan Chapman, was first recorded as a slim 25-year-old who in 1801 turned up in Licking County, Ohio, leading a packhorse laden with apple seed brought from a Pennsylvania cider mill. At suitable spots Johnny stopped to plant his seed in neat rows for the benefit of settlers to come.* Far in advance of the frontier he roamed, following Indian trails or pushing rude boats, always planting new seed and returning periodically to tend the young trees. Soon the whole frontier knew him, gladly gave him shelter. With long hair flying and beard full of burrs, he would lope from the forest at evening, accept supper from a solitary homesteader, read aloud from the Bible or a volume of Swedenborg he usually carried, sleep on the hearth and be off at dawn, often leaving a few pages of his Bible behind him. Growing to believe that clothes were not for comfort but only to cover nakedness, he took to wearing a coffee sack with holes for his arms and legs. He ate no meat, lived chiefly on cornmeal mush.

Once in the War of 1812 he ran 60 miles in a day to warn settlers of an Indian raid. Finally, at 72, he wandered to Fort Wayne, Ind. At a settler’s house near there, after hiking 20 miles, he lay down on the hearth to rise no more.

Applemen love Johnny, although they deplore his cultural methods, for presumably he made the U. S. apple-conscious beyond all other nations. This year some 65,000,000 bbl. of apples will be produced in the U. S.—about four-fifths of world production and biggest U. S. yield in six years. This is a 60% increase over last year’s crop. Apples come in three types (dessert, culinary, cider) and some 7,500 U. S. varieties are grown on a large-scale in all but nine States.† New York once (1900-08) produced 50% of the crop, but Washington now leads, producing over a sixth of the total. New York and Virginia are rivals for second, the honor going to whichever gets the better weather. Before 1870 most growing was done by farmers with small orchards. Since then growing has gradually turned to larger and larger units. Commercial orchards now range from ten to 2,500 acres, with some 40 trees per acre. Most famed U. S. appleman is Senator Harry Flood Byrd, who has 5,000 acres in Virginia. Another big producer is American Fruit Growers, Inc., which owns some 5,000 acres in the Pacific Northwest, Maryland, Pennsylvania, the Virginias and Illinois.

Last year’s apple crop was worth $108,000,000. The value of this year’s big crop will depend largely on the export market. Hence that was the chief concern of Chicago’s great apple meeting. As recently as 1930, 21,000,000 bu. of U. S. apples were exported, mostly to England. Later such tremendous trade barriers rose that exports fell to 6,000,000 last season. Last week Secretary of State Cordell Hull sent a message outlining the 16 reciprocal trade treaties which concern apples. A blow to lope however was delivered by Fruit Specialist Fred A. Motz of the U. S. bureau of agricultural economics, who pointed out that good apples from South America, South Africa and New Zealand are finding favor in Europe, thus giving U. S. apples real competition. The mass of delegates consoled themselves by playing golf, dancing and wishing there were more delegates among them like light-haired, blue-eyed Abraham Kouris, 37, of Tel Aviv, Palestine. A Russian who speaks six languages, Appleman Kouris is the leading importer of apples to the region, where according to tradition, the apple first made news (Genesis, 2-17).

*Not one of many thousand apple trees raised from seed produces worthwhile fruit, but presumably pioneers were not particular. Today apple trees are grafted.

†Arizona, Wyoming, Nevada, Texas, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, the Dakotas.