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Valley
Gold The Story of the Apple Industry in Nova Scotia
by Anne Hutten, Petheric Press Ltd., 1981
The Nova Scotia
Fruit Growers' Association commissioned Anne Hutten to write
a comprehensive history of the Nova Scotia apple industry.
The result, Valley Gold, is a wealth of information for
anyone looking to find out more about this province's apple
industry. It is a comprehensive volume examining the apple
industry from the 1600s to modern times.
A broad range
of topics are covered - the social history, the science,
the industry, and the business of growing and selling apples.
Hutten meticulously documents many of the key figures from
the early days of the Valley's apple industry, such as Charles
Prescott, Colonel Burbidge and Bishop Inglis. However, she
also includes stories from farmers and from people who worked
at the evaporators and processing plants, and through them
manages to illustrate the enormous economic, historic and
social importance of the apple industry to the history of
the Valley. The following is an excerpt from Valley Gold.
"That's
where we got our clothes for winter," said Dean Hennigar
of Sheffield Mills. He remembers cull apples fetching forty
cents a barrel right after World War II; that was considered
a good price. The extra income helped to ensure barrels
of sauerkraut, salt beef, pork and cod down cellar. Cash
from the culls helped to buy those essentials which couldn't
be produced on the farm, such as footwear and winter coats...
The evaporators helped bring a measure of prosperity to
the economy at a time when the Great Depression knocked
down income all over the western world.
Through interviews
and research of historical materials, Hutten creates vividly
detailed pictures of the Valley's orchards, apple warehouses
and evaporators as they must have been years ago. Her fine
rendering of the information and attention to detail truly
transport us back in time to the glory days of the apple
industry in Nova Scotia.
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