STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 69 



wholesale market, not retail. This is a fair return on the invest- 

 ment. 



It seems to me that the outlook for apple growing in Vir- 

 ginia, as in Maine, is bright. The boom days are over. We are 

 not going to hear many more reports of apple orchards selling 

 for $1000 an acre. We must expect years of low prices, like 

 1914, every now and then. But the man who uses judgment 

 in selecting a location and in the care of the orchard and who 

 stays with it year after year should not have cause to regret 

 his choice of business. 



Mr. Sanders : In regard to the cost of heating orchards, I 

 happened to make the statement incidentally, that the cost of 

 heating orchards down in Nova Scotia — what was it you put 

 your cost at, heating the orchards, per acre? 



Mr. Fletcher : My understanding is that the cost of equip- 

 ping an orchard with the type of heaters that are recommended 

 today in the west, together with oil reservoirs, oil and labor, 

 ordinarily would average about $50 an acre. 



Mr. Sanders: I would not like my statement to go along- 

 side of this without some explanation of my end of it. In 

 Nova Scotia we get a tin heater for eleven cents each, which 

 holds about two gallons, we put in one and one-half gallons of 

 crude oil, costing six cents a gallon, using 35 to the acre. The 

 labor we estimate about $2 an acre. In that way we get the 

 cost of heating down to the price I mentioned, $5.50 an acre. 



Mr. Fletcher: What result did you get from it? 



Mr. Sanders : With 50 heaters to the acre we raised the 

 temperature nine degrees. With 35 to the acre, we raised it 

 from 29 to 34. 



Mr. Fletcher : Fifty dollars an acre is the ordinary esti- 

 mate in the west, to which I referred. 



Question Box. 



No. 46. Does it pay to pinch back the new growth of red rasp- 

 berries in the summer? 



President Con ant.- I will say just a word on this subject, 

 hoping somebody will volunteer some further information. I 

 attempt to grow some small fruits. It seems that there are 

 two systems of growing the red raspberry; one is called the 

 straight cane and the other the lateral. Now, as I understand 



