8 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



not too high for the average estimate for initial outlay. A ten acre 



tract will require about the same investment per acre as a larger area 



equally cold. On this investment the annual interest, deterioration, 



and maintenance expense, aside from any operating expense, is of no 



small consequence : 



6 per cent interest on total investment $10 94 



15 per cent deterioration on .$100.00 worth of pots___ 15 00 



6 per cent deterioration on balance of equipment 2 40 



Estimated maintenance — handling, painting, filling, etc 5 00 



Total $33 34 



This is what it will cost us per acre annually just to be prepared, 

 without even once lighting the pots. It may seem like costly insurance, 

 but instead it is a most profitable investment. The cost of properly 

 earing for an orchard — irrigating it, cultivating it, fertilizing, pruning, 

 fumigating, spraying, planting the cover crop, feeding the work ani- 

 mals, meeting repair bills and taxes — all taken together frequently 

 amounts to several hundred dollars per acre yearly. It is not merely 

 a question of whether or not the end of the year will show a profit. 

 •With such expense accounts the grower can not afford to lose his crop 

 even if it takes every dollar of profits and more to save it. The danger 

 of a deficit is far more serious than the possible lessening of the profits. 

 Of course, there is a limit beyond which profitable growing of fruit on 

 cold areas is impossible, but where, in ordinary years, little or no 

 protection against frost is necessary, given other suitable conditions, 

 this problem can be as successfully and profitably met as _any_ of the 

 other problems such as pumping irrigation water, or fumigating for 



insect pests. 



Conclusions. 



• ^ 



Fellow Horticulturists — and this most certainly includes you, Mr. 

 Chairman, — my purpose has been not to give you too many figures and 

 details, but rather to tell you the story of what we have done, and to 

 tell it in such a way that you will believe in the practicability of frost 

 prevention as thoroughly as we believe in it. You will have no diffi- 

 culty in finding out all of the little details of how to do it, if you once 

 really believe that it has been done successfully, that it has paid, that 

 it can be done by yourself or any one else, and that it -will pay you or 

 any other man just as certainly as it has paid us. 



