The Commercial Apple Industry of North America

et. NEW ENGLAND BALDWIN BELT The intensive apple sections of Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts are included in what is known as the New England Baldwin Belt, so called on account of the prominence of the Baldwin variety. Beginning in southern Maine, this region extends through southern New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and into Connecticut, including both the intensive and more scattered and outlying apple plantings in this territory. In Maine the leading apple counties are Oxford, Kennebec, Franklin and Andro- scoggin; in New Hampshire, Rockingham and Hills- boro; while the heaviest apple production in Massachusetts comes from Middlesex, Franklin and Worcester counties. As above stated, Baldwin is the leading New England variety, while Rhode Island Greening, Northern Spy, Mc- Intosh, Wealthy, Gravenstein, Tolman, Ben Davis, Porter and Stark have commercial importance. The New England apple trees, like those of New York, are for the most part old. Great numbers of them have gone out of commercial bearing in recent years and especially during the very cold winter of 1917-1918, when it was estimated that over a million Baldwin trees of this section were killed. The gipsy moth has done heavy damage to the orchards in New Hampshire, and the commercial production for theNew England Baldwin belt has decreased within recent years. A great number of young orchards are coming in, particularly in favored spots of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and these new orchard...