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Men of "Valley Apple Industry" circa 1920's

February 10, 1949

Romantic Notes of the Gay Nineties

(By Leora Webster Cross)

"For me, it was a successful, though very busy year. Besides helping with the regular household chores, I had to bear my share of the burden of "keeping the wolf from the door." Like the Habitant. "We hadn’t much monee, but we’d plenty good healt." Heretofore, we had obtained much of our living by means of "barter", trading butter, eggs, and other produce, for groceries. But now, there was looming up a new source of income. The apple industry was coming into its own.

School had to take second place during apple-picking time. All our energies were bent on meeting the deadline for the next shipment of apples overseas, and on harvesting the crop before Jack Frost got it. There was something exhilarating about the game, and we managed to squeeze in a bit of fun.

Mother had a sense of humor and was such a good sport that we liked to play practical jokes on her. One day, Ethel Craig, sister Grace and I, masquerading as "gentlemen", paraded out to the orchard where mother was working with sister Alberta, ready to act as "announcer". As we anticipated, we were taken for apple buyers and got the proper reception, until close range revealed our identity.

With Joyce Kilmer, I could sing, "I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree", especially, when laden with crimson fruit. I wonder how we ever managed to produce such wonderful apples, without a spray outfit or artificial fertilizer. We had plenty of the natural kind. I guess, as we always kept stock in the barn and a pig and hens.

I think too, our orchard, now the property of Jack Webster, son of Cousin Joe, produced the very best kinds of apples. First came the most lucious Bow Sweet, Astrakhan and Strawberry; then, Gravenstein; rosy-cheeked Bishop Pippin; large Red Kings and Russets. And our Snow Apple was just about on a par with the new celebrated Mackintosh Red. There were only a few trees, like the Emperor, and perhaps Baldwin, that I would be willing to have the government pull out as they do nowadays.

Warehouses were springing up all through the Valley. Cambridge had the advantage of being in the centre of the apple belt and along the line of the Dominion Atlantic Railway, that part of the C.P.R., extending from Yarmouth to Halifax. As the best orchards grew on the land next to the North Mountain, a number of farmers from that locality built a co-operative warehouse near Cambridge Station. I have heard that a firm from Upper Canada bought up the apples, tree run, stored in this warehouse, and then failed up.

Before long, J. Howe Cox, one of our outstanding citizens, acted as agent for the firm of Fox & Co. of London, which owned a warehouse there. His son, George, now living in the house built by Thomas Craig, carries on the tradition as inspector of apples for the Valley .........

May 1st 2008 - Article published in the Kings County Register. Farmers grew apples, communities - Berwick’s Apple Capital Museum inducting three industry leaders - Click here