usually high; and even cider apples, the raw material of that important German product "Aepfelwein," which in good seasons are plentiful at from $1 to $1.25 per 100 kilograms (220 pounds), this year command three times the usual price, and are so scarce that the Aepfelwein product of Germany this season will be confined mainly to the kingdom of Wurttemberg.

At a recent special wholesale fruit market held in Frankfort, buyers were present in great force; but sellers were few, and the stock on exhibition or offered by sample for future delivery was meager in quantity, of indifferent quality, and exorbitant in price. The official record of sales on this occasion shows that fall apples in wholesale lots ranged from 20 to 30 marks ($4.76 to $7.14) per centner of 50 kilograms (110 pounds avoirdupois), while favorite winter varieties, like the "Bellefleur," were bid up for future delivery as high as 35 marks ($8.33) per 50 kilograms, which is about four-fifths of an American barrel. Meanwhile, even cooking apples of the most ordinary and inferior grade now retail in the Frankfort markets and fruit stores for 8 to 9 cents per pound.

All reports indicate that this deficiency of supply is not confined to Germany, but extends more or less generally to France, the Tyrol, Bohemia, and northern Italy, from which countries German importers had been accustomed to draw their supplies until the memorable season of 1896-97, when the American apple, impelled by the phenomenal crop and low prices of that year, invaded the Fatherland and established new standards of quality and cost in the German fruit markets.

So far as concerns shortness of local supply and attractively high. prices, the conditions are therefore favorable for a large importation of American fruit this season. Whether this will be practicable, however, will depend mainly upon two factors-the supply and consequent prices of merchantable apples in the United States, and, secondly, the spirit in which the German officials enforce the decree which so suddenly, in February last, established rigid inspections of all fresh American fruits at the German frontier as a precaution against the introduction of the San José scale.

In respect to the first of these points, the outlook does not seem especially promising. So far as is known here or can be inferred from American market quotations, the apple crop, especially in the Atlantic States, is quite below the average, and even the fruit harvest on the Pacific coast is generally disappointing. In the great apple-growing States of the middle West, the prospect seems to be more favorable, though the sharp advance in the prices of all dried fruits since July would indicate that the general yield is deficient. and that winter apples will continue to command high prices, though

probably not to such an extent as to prevent exports to Germany, provided the conditions of entry here are not made too difficult.

Inspections of incoming fruit from the United States are made, under existing regulations, at the frontier, remote from Frankfort, so that exact information as to the workings of the system is not easy to obtain; but from all that can be ascertained, the effect of the new regulations has been to practically suspend the previously large import of fresh American fruits that came by way of Rotterdam and the Rhine and to concentrate what remains of the trade at Hamburg, where the examinations are made under the most favorable conditions which are permitted by the decree. Fruit importations by way of the Rhine involved the stoppage and landing of the goods, especially for inspection, at the frontier station of Emmerich, where they had then to be reloaded for shipment up the river-a proceeding which involved delays and expenses that were fatal to the trade, and, as above indicated, drove what was left of it to Hamburg, a large, liberal port with a free zone, from which reshipments can be freely made to the Netherlands and other European countries.

Under the system of inspection as applied to fresh American fruits arriving at the German frontier, the chief inspector is empowered to decide in each case how many packages in each separate consignment shall be opened and inspected. He then designates a subordinate to conduct the examination, for whose services there is charged a fee of 4 marks (95 cents) for the first hour and 2 marks (47 cents) for each subsequent hour or fraction of an hour up to 12 marks ($2.85), which is the maximum fee for the inspection of one consignment. As consignments of American apples ordinarily range from fifty to several hundred barrels, it is evident that the mere inspection fee is not in itself exorbitant; but the principal obstacle. imposed by the existing system is the delay and expense incident to landing the goods at the frontier station-as at Emmerich-on-Rhineand reshipping them, after inspection, by another steamer. will be made this fall by several merchants of Düsseldorf and Cologne to secure such modifications of the existing practice in respect to the compulsory landing of the whole of each consignment as will permit the resumption of direct fruit importations by way of Rotterdam and the river.

An effort

But it is probable that with all concessions that are likely to be made under the present system, German trade in fresh fruits from a source so remote as the United States will continue to be somewhat risky and uncertain. Fruit dealers here, while freely conceding the superior tenderness, flavor, and cheapness of American apples, say that the profits of handling them are meager and uncertain, always liable to be swallowed up by losses incident to rotting.

This uncer

and deterioration of the fruit during the long voyage. tainty must continue until American shippers will take the trouble to pack and prepare apples specially for export, as is done in the Tyrol and France, in ventilated barrels lined with paper and wood wool, in which the apples, first carefully selected and wiped dry, are laid by hand to avoid danger of contusion. Hitherto, the apples imported from our country have been those which have been barreled for the home trade, and while some shipments have been received in good condition, others have required opening and picking over, with a loss of 20 to 40 per cent before the remaining sound ones could be offered for sale.

In view of all essential conditions, it would seem probable that the future development of the fruit trade between the United States and Germany will be more in the direction of dried and otherwise preserved, than of fresh, fruits. Just as the restriction of imports. of live cattle and swine from neighboring countries has resulted in an increased demand in Germany for cured meats, in the production of which our country is preeminent, so the difficulties, natural and artificial, which obstruct and complicate the importation of fresh fruits, have increased the popularity and use of American evaporated and otherwise preserved apples, apricots, pears, peaches, and prunes, which have now acquired a hold upon popular appreciation here which nothing can dislodge. Of the 141,372 metric tons of fresh fruits which were imported to Germany in 1897, the United States supplied only 10,336 tons, a little more than 7 per cent; while of the 49,122 tons of dried and preserved fruits imported during the same period, our country supplied 17,850 tons, or more than 36 per cent of the whole. This does not take into account the imports of canned fruits, which, although burdened with an excessive import duty and therefore costly and comparatively little known, have a definite and growing importance.

The German trade in American dried apples, apricots, peaches, pears, and prunes is now firmly established, and it may be after all commercially wiser and more scientific to place less reliance on the export of cheap, perishable, and officially discredited freight like fresh fruits, and devote more care and energy to the sale abroad of the more condensed and valuable products that may be derived from the same fruits when in a preserved and really merchantable condition.

American evaporated apples are generally sold to German importers free on board—that is, with freight, insurance, and all charges paid to Rotterdam, Hamburg, or Bremen. The lowest price ever reached was 35 marks ($8.33) per 100 kilograms (220.46 pounds)— in the spring of 1897. Similar apples cost in July this year 65 marks

($15.47) and advanced to 80 marks ($19.04), but have since declined to about 72 marks, or $17 13, per 100 kilograms, which would be a high and risky figure if it were not offset by the scarcity and relatively still higher prices of fresh apples in Europe.

Dried California apricots have attained great favor in this country, and now cost c. i. f. at Rotterdam $26 to $28.50 per 100 kilograms, against $16.50 to $19 at this time last year, the marked advance being due to a short crop at home. American prunes have also been successfully introduced, and some large shipments were received last year. This season, however, the estimated crop of 100,000,000 pounds has shrunk to 80,000,000, among which is included a large percentage of small fruit, which can not be readily sold in European markets, for the reason that both France and Turkey have good crops of prunes this year

FRANKFORT, September 29, 1898.

FRANK H. MASON,

Consul-General.

FRUIT MARKET IN MANITOBA

The fruit growers of the United States (chiefly those of the Pacific slope) supply at least four-fifths of all the green fruit consumed in Manitoba and the Northwest Territory of Canada; but there is danger that this practical monopoly of the market may not be maintained in the future. Owing to the excellence of their product and the great care they have exercised in its selection and packing for shipment, our fruit farmers have been able heretofore to defy the competition of Canadian producers, notwithstanding the fact that the latter have much the advantage in shorter lines of transportation. Now, Canadians seem to be waking up to the situation and are bringing urgent pressure to bear upon the Dominion and provincial boards of agriculture to induce them to assist in providing better facilities for preserving, packing, and transporting Canadian fruits. These bodies have heretofore bent all their energies toward securing the English and other European markets, but are now making a vigorous effort to capture the home trade. Encouragement is being given to the erection of cold-storage plants and packing houses, and transportation lines are being worked. The United States system of packing fruits has been adopted, and, altogether, a much stronger bid will be made for these markets than heretofore.

Still greater care in selecting, packing, and shipping will be necessary on the part of American fruit growers, if they would continue to hold their supremacy in this market.

WINNIPEG, September 26, 1898.

W. H. H. GRAHAM,

Consul.

PULP AND PAPER MILL IN ONTARIO.

I inclose herewith a clipping taken from the Toronto Globe of October 7, 1898. Sturgeon Falls has a population of about 800 and is located on the Canadian Pacific Railroad, 387 miles west of Montreal, about 60 miles north or northeast of Georgian Bay, and 4 miles from Lake Nipissing. There is no outlet for the product of the mills by water. The water-power facilities are ample for even a much larger plant than is spoken of in the article.

Lake Nipissing is about 35 miles long by 4 to 12 miles wide, and is navigable for small boats and tugs for towing. For a supply of spruce, they will have the territory tributary to the Sturgeon River; also the Little Sturgeon, Veuve, South, and other small rivers running into Lake Nipissing. This large territory contains a vast amount of spruce timber, and the location is conceded to be an admirable one for pulp and paper making.

SAULT STE. MARIE, October 10, 1898.

GEO. W. SHOTTS,
Commercial Agent.

An important agreement, which secures for Ontario the investment of a vast amount of British capital, was arrived at yesterday between the Ontario government and the Sturgeon Falls Pulp Company (Limited), after more than six months of careful consideration by the crown lands department. Not only will it secure the investment of the capital aforesaid, but it will make Canada a mighty competitor in the British market with the American paper exporters, and will, at the same time, give employment to a large number of Canadians. The syndicate, the Occidental, is composed of some of the foremost British capitalists, who have secured from the government 75 square miles of spruce lands along the Sturgeon River.

At the present time, it costs American exporters between $6 and $7 a cord to lay Canadian pulp wood down at their mills, and even at this figure they can manufacture paper and sell it in England to the extent of hundreds of thousands of poun is annually. Thanks to the concession, it will not cost the Sturgeon Falls Pulp Company more than $2 per cord, and it hopes, by careful management, to become a powerful competitor for the British trade. It expects to be aided considerably by the pro-Canadian feeling in England and by the fact that it is British capital which is invested and Canadian workmen, not American, who will reap the benefit. The terms provide that all the spruce cut must be manufactured in the country. The company contracts to expend $1,000,000 in buildings and plant, and will have an operating capital of $2,500,000. The pulp mill was formally opened at Sturgeon Falls on Saturday last, and the foundation of the first of six paper mills has been laid. The company undertakes to employ not less than 240 hands, but will in reality employ nearly 400. The yearly output will be 360,000 tons of pulp, or 120 tons for every working-day.