Show peculiarities CROPS I 1 ALL goan go an a strike la in c centala t t yeam teu fc when the apple crop la Is short abort the I 1 scarcity Is 1 always likely to affect prices late Tate in the winter says the cleveland leader now the picking of the russets and baldvins baldwins Bald Bild wins has only just ceased where there were any to pick and yet apples cost about three times as much in cleveland as fruit did one year ago this it is true is an extreme instance of the difference between an off season for orchards and one which was very much on the crop is unusually deficient clent this year even for a time when no great yield could be expected and the abundance of orchards broke all records in their lavish yield still the rise of per cent in the price of the most staple fruit of the united states and of many other countries in the temperate zone Is so great as to be a reproach to modern horticulture so great a change from one year to another should not be possible it is always up and down in the apple market one year brings a good crop and the next a small yield with hopeless persistency of alteration it is not a question of climates because in any country where apples are grown there will be single orchards of separate trees in nearly barren orchards that bear all the fruit which could ever be expected of them while all around I 1 there are empty boughs the trouble appears to be the habit of bearing alternate years with nearly all the orchards keeping the same seasons of rest and activity it ought to be possible tor for science and skill to change this uniformity of habit into a more equal division of favors between the e years that would give the apple growers much greater profits and the consumers who are virtually the whole population lation when apples are cheap and abundant would have much better supplies of wholesome and useful food such a reform in fruit culture would be worthy of the highest ambition it hardly seems possible if it is not beyond human power it ought to be brought about for the general good and to the great profit of the men who learn how to make apple trees bear in the oft years yeara and rest it if they must be in the years of plenty |