Fruit Crops In The United States And Canada

The wonderful increase of our fruit ' crops, owing to the defective statistics, is even yet but little appreciated. A ' little more than twenty years ago it i was a popular notion that the ' ful cultivation of f mits, especially the ' apple and peach, was bounded on the ' north by the Mohawk river, and on the ' south by the James. Many of our present great fruit districts were considered too f ar north, and many wei e even yet western wilds. At our Centennial exposition the display comprised upwards of 60,000 dishes, and over 400,000 specimens, witli distant Kansas in the van. Michigan values her apple erop at $2,000,000; peaches $1,000,000, and otlier fruits at $1,000,000 or a total of $4,000,000, while the valueof the apple erop in one county in New York is stated at a million of dollars. The Delaware and Maryland península produces such enormous crop3 of peaches that we scarcely dare state the quantity, estimated at 7,000,000 to 15,000,000 baskets per annum. Virginia claims to lead the chapter of horticultural progress in small fruits. Of strawberries New York alone has received in one day 7,000 crates, equal to 10,000 bushels. California sends east many millions of baskets of grapes and pears. North Carolina's apple and peaeh crops if properly handled would coustitute one of its leading interests. Arkansas, Georgia, Missouri and Texas claiin precedence over Illinois with its 320,000 acres in orchards. The Gulf States in semi-tropical fruits rival Southern Europe in productiou if not in utilizing the crops. New England's apple crops throughly refute the Mohawk boundary, and the Ontario Society carries off the medal at Boston for the best collection of fruits, in 1878, and now our northern neighbor, Nova Seotia, takes tbe palm at the Boyal Society of London. The United States statistics of acres under cultivation in orchards, vineyards, and small fruits, are given at 4,500,000; estimated value of fruit produced: apples, $50,400,000; peaches, $56,135,000 ;pears, f 14,130,000; grapes, $2,118,900; strawberries, $5,000,000; other fruits, $10,432,800; making a grand total of $138,216,700, or nearly one-half of the value of our average wheat erop. The last census will doubtless, when completed, for the first time afford a caref ully taken exhibit. The proper utilization of this vast food supply, it would indeed be difficult to over-estimate, happily the apathy of years past is giving way, and recent progress in evaporating our surplus fruits if continued will place it among the foremost items in the catalogue of our exports, and through it American pomological wealth will assert its supremacy in all the markets of the world.