The commercial apple regions of North America are in Canada and the northern United States, comprising about two or three tiers of States, with important extensions southward into the mountains and in special parts. The Southern States are not known as apple-growing country, except in special restricted elevated areas, although there are considerable plantations near the Gulf of Mexico.
The geography of apple-growing on the North American continent cannot be better displayed than by copying the table of contents of the larger part of Chapters III and II in Folger and Thomson's excellent recent book, "The Commercial Apple Industry of North America:"
Commercial Apple Production in Canada
Nova Scotia
Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick
Quebec
Ontario
British Columbia.
Leading Apple Regions of the United States
Western New York
Hudson Valley
New England Baldwin belt
The Champlain district
New Jersey
Delaware
Shenandoah-Cumberland district
Piedmont district of Virginia
Minor regions in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia
Mountain region of North Carolina
Mountain region of Georgia
Ohio
Southern Ohio, Rome Beauty district
Minor regions in Ohio
Kentucky
Michigan
Illinois
Southern Illinois early apple region
Mississippi Valley region of Illinois
Ozark region
Missouri River region
Arkansas Valley of Kansas
Southeastern Illinois
Colorado
New Mexico
Utah
Montana
Washington
Yakima Valley
Wenatchee North Central Washington district
Spokane district
Walla Walla district
Oregon
Hood River Valley
Rogue River Valley
Other apple districts in Oregon
Idaho
Payette district
Boise Valley
Twin Falls
Lewiston section
California
Watsonville district
Sebastopol apple district
Yucaipa section
Wisconsin
Minnesota
The varieties of the South and the North, and largely also of the West and the East, are prevailingly different. Canada has a set of apples quite its own. These differences are marked when one visits exhibitions in the various regions. Let the visitor who is a good judge of apples in Michigan and Ohio attempt to judge them in an exhibition in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia, in the Province of Quebec, in North Carolina, in Minnesota, in Oregon. He will be impressed with the wonderful diversity, as well as the undeveloped resources, of the continent.
Southward, apples do not keep well. There are no true winter apples in the Southern States, outside mountain regions. A winter apple of the North becomes a fall apple in the South. In fact, there are marked differences in keeping quality within a single State. On gravelly lands or warm slopes in the southern part of New York, the Northern Spy may become practically a late autumn apple; in the northern parts of the State it is a firm crisp all-winter keeper. In the winter apple, the ripening process proceeds in storage. When the season is so long that maturity is reached on the tree, the subsequent duration is relatively short.
It is not to be inferred, however, that apples are to be grown only in regions and soils naturally well adapted. Such adaptations should be controlling in commercial plantations; but if man has dominion he should be able to accomplish much in untoward or even in hostile conditions. Even the city lot may be able to yield a harvest, if the occupant of it is minded in fruits rather than in other things. Every observant traveler has noted cases in which good results in the rearing of plants and animals have been attained in places that no one would choose for the purpose: the man has overcome his obstacles. I was impressed with this fact in visiting a greenhouse in the Shetland Islands. Cultivation has been carried far beyond the optimum regions. The merit of the man's performance is measured in the excellence of his result rather than in the quantity of it. The application of skill is the highest test of ability in plant-growing, and this is often expressed in the most difficult places.