New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 547 



accidental variations. Average figures for ten crops ought to give 

 a fairly safe standard of measurement. Table V gives the figures 

 of expenses and profits, — of which the following is a brief summary. 



The average cost per acre of growing and harvesting apples in 

 sod was $51.73, while under tillage the cost was $83.48, the difference 

 in favor of sod being $31.75. Subtracting these figures from the 

 gross income gives an average " balance " per acre for the sodded 

 plats of $74.31 while the " balance " per acre from the tilled plats 

 was $140.67, an increase of $65.36 in favor of tillage. In other 

 words, for every dollar remaining from the sod income, after deducting 

 cost of growing and harvesting, the tilled trees gave a similar balance 

 of one dollar eighty-nine cents. That is to say, since the remain- 

 ing fixed charges are practically equal for the tilled and sodded areas, 

 tillage gave nearly double the profits in this ten-year period that 

 sod gave. 



The income from the tilled half of the Auchter orchard furnished 

 a good basis for calculating the profits of a New York apple orchard. 

 The cost of the various operations, of the materials used, and the 

 selling prices and profits of this orchard for the ten years for which 

 it was leased by the Station, are published in Bulletin No. 376. 



MINOR EXPERIMENTS IN THE AUCHTER ORCHARD. 



In the test as planned in 1903 the south half of the orchard, five 

 rows of twenty-six trees each, was in sod; the north half under 

 tillage. During the last five years the east half of the orchard has 

 been in sod; the west half under tillage. Certain rows in the sod 

 section of the last period have had annual applications of nitrate 

 of soda while the remaining rows have not been so fertilized. 

 Reference to the diagram on page 254 and to the plan of the plats on 

 page 255 will make clear the redivision of the work made in 1909. 

 We must now briefly discuss these minor experiments. 



The change from sod to tillage. — Plat I, consisting of the southwest 

 quarter of the orchard, was in sod the first five and under tillage 

 the second five years. How long did it take the sodded trees to 

 "come back"? The effects were almost instantaneous and soonest 

 discovered and probably best measured by the eye. During the 

 last season of the first period the leaves on the sodded trees were 

 few, small and of a sickly, yellow color. In mid-season of the first 

 summer of tillage in this plat the color was the normal healthy green 



