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FACTS ABOUT GEORGIA 107
Apples
Apple growing in Georgia is still in its infancy, but all natural
conditions are so favorable, and planting has been on such an
extensive scale during the past few years, that an exceedingly
creditable future is predicted for the industry. In fact, the State
is not far from becoming as famous for its delicious apples as
for its peaches and melons, and is fast coming to be a rival
of the best known apple sections of the North and West. Pre
vious to twenty years ago the industry had been purely local and
no attempt had been made to commercialize it widely. It was
about 1900 that the North Georgia fruit began to attract general
attention for is firm texture, fine flavor and high color. In the
five years preceding 1915 it is conservatively estimated that not
less than a million trees were planted in three counties of North
eastern Georgia alone.
Georgia apples surprised the horticulturists of the country,
when, at the National Apple Growers' Show at Spokane, Wash.,
in 1908, with 1,500 entries in competition, they took second prize
for the best exhibit from the Southern States, and second for
the best new variety open to the world. Again, in 1913, at the
annual fruit exhibit of the New York College of Agriculture at
Ithica, apples from Georgia were awarded four first and two
second premiums, when among the competitors were orchards of
every fruit growing state in the country, and 130 varieties of
apples were entered.
The early settlers of the highlands of Georgia found many
apple trees of mature age that had been planted by the Cherokee
Indians, and it is a remarkable fact that some of these trees,
three and four feet in diameter, were still bearing profusely in
1915, at more than a hundred years of age, and yielding above
60 bushels a tree. Experts agree that all the conditions of soil,
Up near Mount Yonah
in Habersham County in
the Fall of 1915 was the
inspiring sight of 28,000
bushels of glorious red
apples—in two bins—
part of one orchard crop
of 40,000 bushels.
•§>
According to the old
rule of nature, 1916 is to
be the "on" year with
apples, as 1915 was the
"off" year, and big
things are expected from
the North Georgia or
chards.