Missouri State Board of Horticulture. 373 



at so short notice to give you as detailed an account as was 

 requested by your secretary. Instead I have taken, as an 

 example, my oldest grape patch consisting of eleven acres, 

 which was in rather a dilapidated condition at the time I took 

 possession. This patch I have chosen in order to show you 

 the possibilities of the grape interest during a period of ten 

 years. I have made a summary of the original eleven acres of 

 grapes and to simplify it have taken the average of one acre. 



The first year the average crop was 306 baskets for ten 

 acres; the tenth year the average crop was 1,624 baskets for ten 

 acres. The greatest number to a single acre was 2,232 and the 

 least number was 158 baskets. Following is the average of 

 the eleven-acre patch for a period of ten years reduced to one 

 acre per annum: Receipts — 829 eight-pound baskets sold at 

 17 2-9 cents, $142.77; disbursements — renewal of posts and 

 setting, $1.60; pruning, $4.60; raking out brush, $11.44; twine, 

 $1.27; tieing grapes, $4.08; cultivating, $2.25; hoeing, $3.69; 

 829 empty baskets at $22.50 per thousand, $18.65; picking, 

 $12.43; delivering, $3.31; extra labor, $3.00; commission less 

 rebate, $10.99; icing (net), $2.07. Total, $69.41. Average net 

 profit, $73.36. 



For the last five years the average was better than for the 

 first five years. This does not include interest on the invest- 

 ment, for the reason that land varies so much in value in dif- 

 ferent sections. 



I have also grown diversified crops of fruit during this 

 period, but can only generalize on them in my statement. I 

 have grown some food crops for my own use, but more with 

 the idea of renovating and renewing the old plantation. There 

 are forty acres in the place, about 28 of which are in fruit. The 

 products were not quite all put through the association, for the 

 reason that it did not handle several kinds of fruit, especially 

 apples, for a number of years. 



Now then I want to speak of co-operation. If there is a 

 scarcity of fruit generally all over the country and we have a good 

 quality of stock we can easily realize a fair price for our product 

 without co-operation, because we will have a good demand on 

 our local market. But we cannot do as well even then as we 

 could with co-operation, as I will show you later. Suppose 

 there is a large crop all over the country, what will be the 

 result? 



Let me call your attention to our two bumper crops during 



