The Apple Quality Showdown
A local grower challenges rumors of poor fruit shelf-life by proving his apples outlast the competition.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
W. D. Mackay, who has been here for the past ten days, paying a visit to his partner, J. F. Bleakley, on their fruit ranch south of town, left Thursday for his home in Seattle. Mr. Mackay says some of the buyers have been passing up this district because they were told by Wenatchee people that our apples were, like Yakima’s, poor keepers. To prove that this report was untrue, Mr. Mackay took a box of Winesaps that had been taken from cold storage and left in a basement for 60 days, and, before a representative crowd of the buyers, secured an admission from the buyers that they were the best preserved apples they had seen in the state.
“To prove that this report was untrue, Mr. Mackay took a box of Winesaps... and secured an admission from the buyers that they were the best preserved apples they had seen in the state.”
Inter-regional agricultural competition and misinformation campaigns are evergreen themes. This story captures the fierce rivalry between the Yakima, Wenatchee, and White Bluffs fruit-growing districts in the early 20th century.
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