49^ 



ANNUAL HfitOftf OF THE 



Oft. Doc. 



TILLED AND SOD ORCHARDS. 



(5-year average per acre.) 



Tilled 10 years or more, 

 Tilled 5 years or more, 

 Tilled at least 3 years. 

 Sod at least 3 years, . 

 Sod 6 years or more, , 

 Sod 10 years or more, 



?1S9 

 148 

 121 

 118 

 134 

 117 



Now all of the orchards in the counties which they sprayed 

 can be found under one or the other of these heads. The experi- 

 ment covers a period of ten years. You will notice that the orchards 

 under tillage for the longest term of years take the lead in both 

 yield and profit. Here is one of our comparison tables showing aver- 

 age results for 4 years under different distances of planting: 



DISTANCE APART AND YIELD IN BUSHELS. 



(4 years average.) 



Not over 30 x 30 ft., 186 bu. 



31 X 31 to 35 X 35 ft., 222 bu. 



36 X 36 to 40 X 40 ft., 229 bu. 



Now, you may doubt somewhat the accuracy of our figures here. 

 Let me explain. The figures we get are from the fruit growers 

 on their yields and income. We believe we know about the accuracy 

 of the figures. More than half of the fruit growers go right to 

 their books where the figures are in black and white and give 

 us the figures. The rest of them are able to give us a rather varied 

 estimate. Perhaps is may not be accurate but even then we are 

 getting an accurate result. It is really based on the law of aver- 

 age and when we have enough orchards we are getting accurate 

 results. Let me just tell you how that law of average can be illus- 

 trated and this is rather interesting too.\ One of the men at Cor- 

 nell wanted to impress upon the minds of the students the im- 

 portance of the law of averages. When he came into the meeting 

 'he asked them to guess on the length of a certain line. In that 

 meeting there were foreigners from all countries and people from 

 all parts of our country and when he averaged up thirty guesses his 

 result was .723 inches and the most accurate measurement he could 

 make was .721. In the first place, we are dealing with hundreds and 

 hundreds and the greater the number the greater will be the accu- 

 racy of our figures as far as the results are concerned. When one 

 county gives the same results as another county and so on it seems 

 to make our figures more accurate. Let us see what they are doing 

 in tillage. There are four factors connected with the good care of 



