The Historic South Mountain Fruit Belt encompasses about 20,000 acres in a fertile crescent covering the southeastern slopes of South Mountain in the western half of Adams County, where deep, well drained, gravelly soils make it one of the finest fruit producing regions in the United States. Adams County is the largest producer of apples and peaches in Pennsylvania and fifth in the nation. A thriving fruit industry has existed here for over a century, and a growing winemaking industry has also developed. Similar soils are found only in Italy. In 1878, Noah Sheely planted the first commercial orchards four miles west of Arendtsville, now the Round Barn Farm and Market, and after finding a buyer for Adams County's first big crop of apples at the Chicago World's Fair in 1895, orchard planting quickly spread through the county, including the Deardorffs, now home to Hauser's Estate Winery, and the Tysons, one of several local fruit growing Quaker families. By 1925, fifty thousand barrels of apples were exported to England, and local forestlands supplied wooden apple barrel factories in several places, including Arendtsville. In 1907, Christian H. Musselman purchased a local canning business in nearby Biglerville and created the Musselman brand; later, Knouse Foods Cooperative Inc. purchased these operations and expanded the Musselman and Lucky Leaf brands. Because Arendtsville lies in the heart of Pennsylvania's largest fruit growing region, the Pennsylvania State University established a Fruit Research Laboratory here in 1918, and that research program continues today with a laboratory and office building in nearby Biglerville and research plots still located here.