he district and are certainly very much
above the average. The apple crop in the section named was a record
breaker, and where trees were at all cared for and properly sprayed the
quality and size of the fruit was very superior and remarkably free from
insect pests and disease.

[Illustration: Bridge on Lakeside Drive, at Albert Lea, in First
Congressional District.]

The yield of several orchards in this vicinity was from 1,000 to 15,000
barrels of marketable fruit, an increase of nearly 100 per cent above
the largest previous crop. From this station twenty-one carload lots of
apples, averaging 200 barrels per car, were shipped, besides nearly as
many more sold in the local markets of La Crosse and Winona and shipped
in small lots by freight and express. The prices obtained were in all
cases good, considering that the varieties grown are mostly summer and
fall and had to be sold in competition with Iowa and Illinois fruit.
While all markets were over-supplied, the demand for the quality of
fruit grown here in the commercial orchards was greatly in excess of
the supply and attracted buyers from Chicago and the Twin Cities and has
built a permanent market so long as the quality keeps up to this year's
standard.

At the same time, I am more than ever impressed with the necessity for
some manner of utilizing the surplus and low grade fruit with which the
local markets are flooded. It seems a great waste to have thousands of
bushels of apples fed to hogs and left to rot on the ground which would
be a large asset if converted into vinegar or canned. More than one-half
the fruit brought from farms is only fit for such use and by being
forced on the market serves to lower prices and demand for good fruit. I
visited one farm orchard within twenty miles of here and saw at a low
estimate 400 bushels of apples lying on the ground, all of which could
have been utilized in a factory, but not having been sprayed were not
fit for barreling, and the owner had turned the hogs in to get rid of
them. This is a condition that is sure to become worse in view of the
many small orchards recently set, besides the commercial orchards that
are just coming into bearing. From the reports received, in reply to
circulars sent out, I gather that the crop varied from nothing to 100
per cent and the quality in corresponding ratio, depending in most cases
upon whether orchards were properly sprayed or neglected.

Scab and other diseases caused a lar