STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 89 



in the work I have been trying to do. I have been trying to 

 find what each department costs, keeping an itemized account of 

 everything I am doing and charging up everything at prices 

 which I have to pay for work. If I work with a man a day I 

 charge the same as I pay the man. Everything that I have been 

 doing has been figured on the basis of $2 a day for a man and 

 $1 for a horse. 



Starting with that little proposition in 1908, with a lot of old 

 neglected trees, in bad shape, as some of you know, I began 

 the work of reconstruction. Pruning the first year consisted in 

 cutting the dead wood, water shoots and suckers and digging out 

 the borers. Twice a year, about June 15 to 20 and August 15 

 to 20, a man goes over those trees with a magnifying glass and 

 looks carefully and thoroughly for the borers. I find it profit- 

 able to make that second trip, because then the borers have 

 hatched and are about one-sixteenth of an inch long and have 

 just commenced working into the outer bark, so they are easily 

 gotten out. Those that are left, if any escape, are gotten out 

 the next spring, in June, when one will find their chips. In 

 that way we practically cleared those trees of that pest. It cost 

 me 29 cents that year. I used ten pounds of Fisher formula 

 fertilizer per tree, at a cost of 26 cents, and cut the grass under 

 the trees at a cost of three cents. In 1909, the pruning was 

 more thorough and cost me 30 cents ; fertilizer, 25 cents ; sprayed 

 once at a cost of four cents ; cutting grass, three cents ; total, 62 

 cents. In 1910, pruning, ten cents; fertilizer, 17 cents — I 

 changed to a formula made of chemicals carrying four and one- 

 half per cent nitrogen, eight-ninths phosphoric acid, seven and 

 one-half potash — ten pounds to the tree ; cutting grass, three 

 cents. That year I sprayed the trees and washed them with a 

 lime wash, 17 cents; sprayed twice, 12 cents; and the cost for 

 the year was 59 cents. In 191 1, pruning and digging borers, 

 ten cents; fertilizing, 17 cents; spraying three times, 17 cents; 

 cutting grass, three cents; total, 47 cents. In 1912, pruning and 

 digging borers, 12 cents; fertilizing, 19 cents — I increased to 

 12 pounds that year, per tree ; spraying, 17 cents ; cutting grass, 

 three cents; total, 51 cents. In 1913, digging borers and prun- 

 ing was but seven cents ; fertilizer, 20 cents ; spraying three 



