96 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



the yields, selling price and profits in the culture of this fruit. 

 I hasten to say that you must not expect anything like a full 

 consideration of the subject. Neither time nor material suffice 

 for that ; for, keeping accounts in apple-growing is a difficult 

 and complicated piece of business. The yearly inventory and 

 striking of balances, which do very well for the grocer and 

 butcher, do not begin to tell the whole story in fruit-growing. 

 In growing apples, for instance, it takes several years to bring 

 an orchard in bearing, after which it barely maintains itself for 

 a decade or two ; the lean years and fat years are more accen- 

 tuated than in most other industries ; advantages and disad- 

 vantages are exceedingly changeable ; and the value of the invest- 

 ment is variable. Indeed, fruit-growing is not far removed 

 from gambling pure and simple, and I imagine a gambler has 

 trouble in keeping accounts. 



The only possible way to obtain an absolutely accurate reck- 

 oning of the profits and losses of an apple orchard is to add 

 the expenses for the whole life of the trees and subtract from 

 the total income; the remainder, if plus, is the profits; if minus, 

 as will be most often the case, the losses. This plan might have 

 been feasible for Methuselah, with his 969 years, but in our 

 short span of life it will not work. Since annual accountings 

 are not fair, and total ones not possible, we must divide the 

 life of the orchard into periods and take data for each division. 

 In this region, where the apple lives as long as man. we may 

 make from the life of an orchard seven periods of a decade 

 each, similar to the seven ages which Shakespeare allotted to 

 man. The seven periods ought to make very fair units for the 

 collection of data. 



Unfortunately we do not have for any one of the seven 

 periods much accurate data either as to the average total cost of 

 production or the cost of any one of the several orchard opera- 

 tions, nor do we know much about the average cost of the 

 materials used in orcharding, or the average selling price of 

 the produce of the orchard. Now the value of such data is 

 obvious to those of you who are making any attempt to keep 

 track of the finances of your business, and the object of the 

 present paper is to put you in possession of figures that, rightly 

 used, ought to be helpful. I say rightly used, because most 

 figures are capable of several interpretations and all are sub- 

 ject to the lapses and mistakes common to erring mortals. 



