20 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



sixty-nine trees to the acre, costing thirteen dollars and 

 eighty cents all planted. As it will be abont six years 

 before the trees begin to bear, the ground should be culti- 

 vated, and kept well stirred. When the trees commence 

 bearing, seed the land to grass, as apple-orchards in bearing 

 do better in grass. 



We will take the average yield per tree for the first three 

 years at one peck, or seven barrels a year, which would be 

 worth, at fifty cents per barrel on the tree, three dollars and 

 fifty cents : the three years would give ten dollars and fifty 

 cents. The next three years one gets three pecks from a tree, 

 or twenty-one barrels each year, worth ten dollars and fifty 

 cents, or thirty-one dollars and fifty cents for the three years. 

 The next three years one gets one bushel and a half from 

 a tree, or forty-one barrels, worth, at fifty cents a barrel, 

 twenty dollars and fifty cents per year, or sixty-one dollars 

 and fifty cents for the three years. Now we have, over and 

 above the use of the land and all labor, ten dollars and fifty 

 cents, thirty-one dollars and fifty cents, and sixty-one dollars 

 and fifty cents, or one hundred and three dollars and fifty 

 cents : deducting twelve dollars and forty -two cents, interest 

 at six per cent on the cost of trees for the fifteen years they 

 have been planted, we have, over and above all expenses, 

 ninety-one dollars and eight cents, as the hay cut will pay for 

 the use of the land. 



Now, if corn had been planted from the time the trees 

 had begun bearing, we would have ten dollars profit each 

 year, or ninety dollars for the nine years the trees have borne : 

 this gives one dollar and eight cents in favor of the apples. 



The orchard, now having been planted fifteen years, is just 

 beginning its work, and for the next twenty-five years will 

 average a barrel and a half per tree, worth, at fifty cents 

 per barrel on the tree, about fifty-two dollars per acre above 

 all work and use of the land. Now, let us take the actual 

 yield of ten trees not above medium size, — four Baldwins 

 and six Greenings. These trees produced sixty -four barrels 

 of picked apples, which at fifty cents per barrel on the tree, 

 or, to be exact, forty-seven cents and a half, the price for 

 which they were sold, gives three dollars and four cents per 

 tree, or two hundred and nine dollars and seventy-six cents 

 to the acre. Reckoning a crop only every other year, we 



