191 5 



BETTER FRUIT 



Page 



21 



Orchard Costs — First, Marketing; Second, the Production 



Professor C. I. Lewis, Corvallis, 



THE problems confronting the fruit- 

 grower can be divided into two 

 natural heads — first, marketing; 

 second, problems of production. Mar- 

 keting includes standardization, distri- 

 bution and the utilization of by-prod- 

 ucts. The following points are in- 

 cluded under problems of production: 

 Our aim should be to produce a large 

 crop of high-class fruit at a minimum 

 cost, while at the same time we main- 

 tain the vigor of the trees. The pro- 

 duction of a large crop of first-class 

 fruit depends upon a happy combina- 

 tion of soil, variety, climate, and jjer- 

 sonal skill. The cost of production will 

 depend very largely upon two factors, 

 namely, the advantage of location and 

 the business ability of the owner. 



To obtain such results the owner 

 must have his work well organized; he 

 must have made a systematic study of 

 details, and must have had a good pre- 

 vious knowledge of costs. In attacking 

 the problem of the production of fruit 

 there are many sides which should he 

 taken into consideration, such as size 

 of unit, economic management and 

 orchard operations. There is undoubt- 

 edly a true economic size for an or- 

 chard, for each type of fruit. This is 

 very apt to be a one-team unit or com- 

 binations of one-team units. That is, 

 an area on which one team and one 

 man can do the greater part of the 

 work, or a combination of such units. 

 In very small acreages, unless one is 

 very careful, the overhead charges be- 

 come so high as to become almost pro- 

 hibitive. 



Orchards should be well laid out so 

 as to facilitate work and to make an 

 attractive appearance. They should be 

 divided into blocks of not too large 

 area; these blocks may be divided ac- 

 cording to age of trees, type of fruit, 

 variety of fruit, soil or any other such 

 factor. The accounts of the costs of 

 each block should be kept separately. 

 In laying out the orchard very careful 

 attention should be given to pollina- 

 tion, so as to enable the grower to get 

 the maximum set of fruit and at the 

 same time care should be taken to 

 maintain the orchard with the greatest 

 economy of management. That is, if 

 would be best to lay it out in solid rows 

 of two to six rows of each variety 

 rather than in a miscellaneous scatter- 

 ing of varieties. 



Tillage. — Much money is being lost in 

 tillage. This is due to wrong methods 

 of tillage on the one hand or the em- 

 ployment of wrong tools on the other 

 hand. Much money is lost by those 

 who handle clay soils through neglect 

 to harrow promptly after plowing. 

 When large areas are left unharrowed 

 it materially increases the cost of put- 

 ling this land into good tilth. Poor 

 loots and insufficient horsepower are 

 (lie Waterloo of many an orchardist. 

 lie has not worked out, for exnnii)le, 

 the relationship between two, three and 

 four horses on certain tools, neither 

 has he worked out the relationship of 



Oregon, before Fruit Growers' Conference, Spoka 



the work the tools will do and the com- 

 parative cost of certain tools. This 

 must be done if the cost of tillage is to 

 be kept down. 



Inter-Cropping. — We hear a great 

 deal of the possibilities of inter-crop- 

 ping, and many men are making a great 

 deal of money; others are losing money 

 or breaking even, simply because they 

 have not definitely determined the cost 

 of the production of such inter-crops, 

 or the increased cost of maintenance of 

 the trees where crops are grown among 

 them. The inter-crops in an orchard 

 should, as a rule, be something which 

 should sell at a high price. 



Fertilizers. — While we have not been 

 using fertilizers very extensively as yet, 

 iiuich money is being lost by the appli- 

 cation of mixed fertilizers. The only 

 way to test out your land is to choose 

 small blocks of trees and apply the 

 separate hi.gh-grade fertilizers, such as 

 nitrogen, potash and phosphoric acid, 

 and if you desire, combinations of the 

 two and on one plot, a combination of 

 all three of such elements. In this way, 

 by taking six or seven plots, one can 

 easily determine what plant foods will 

 be of value on your orchard. You can- 

 not determine this by the use of a 

 mixed fertilizer. 



Pruning. — The subject of pruning is 

 almost too large to dwell on at this 

 lime. The greatest loss, however, I 

 believe, in the cost of production, as 

 far as pruning is concerned, comes 

 from excessive pruning of trees just 

 reaching the bearing age. In addition 

 to this a great loss comes from care- 

 less pruning, leaving wounds unpro- 

 tected, etc. 



Spraying. — We have heard a great 

 deal from the entomologists and plant 

 Ijathologists of the tremendous toll that 

 insects and diseases take from our 

 crops, and undoubtedly their state- 

 ments are true, although the damages 

 are probably purely estimated. How- 

 ever, while it is true that money is lost 

 by not giving ample protection against 

 diseases and insects, there are a great 

 many men who are losing money in 

 other ways. First, by not knowing 

 what they are spraying for. Second, 

 by spraying the entire orchard where 

 only a few trees need attention. I 

 know one man who sprayed a large 

 young orchard seven times in one year, 

 and yet he had very little in his or- 

 cliard to spray for. Money is lost by 

 mixing combinations which don't work 

 well together; by discarding well- 

 known sprays for new, untried mix- 

 lures. We should be willing to try 

 new sprays which come out, but should 

 do it on a conservative scale. Money is 

 also lost by investing money in outfits 

 that are not suited to the work, and by 

 usin.g excessive power and coarse 

 nozzles when they are not needed. 

 There are certain conditions where 

 coarse nozzles are most efTeclivc to use, 

 but there are other conditions where 

 they are not elTeclive and certainly are 

 very wasteful. 



ne National Apple Show, 1914 



Handling the Crop. — Money is lost in 

 handling the crop by not systematizing 

 the work; by not studying the proper 

 location of the packing house, and its 

 best arrangement. The packing house 

 should always be centrally located and 

 should be so planned that the fruit 

 always moves in one dii-ection, after it 

 arrives in the building. Much money 

 is being lost in the Pacific Northwest at 

 the present lime by allowing much of 

 the fruit to hang on the trees too long 

 before harvesting, and our horticul- 

 tural conmiunities as a whole are meet- 

 ing with great loss because we do not 

 have the proper facilities for storage. 



Labor. — Enormous sums are lost by 

 the poor handling of labor. To get the 

 best results the owner or foreman 

 should be a student, one who plans his 

 work carefully, who has planned out 

 the work for each man for the entire 

 day as much as it is feasible to do so. 

 He must make a close study of his 

 actual costs from day to day. Above all 

 he must be a good student of human 

 nature and understand men. He should 

 be of an exi)erimental type of mind, so 

 that he is willing to try out, on a con- 

 servative scale, some new methods. 



The Star Boarder. — There are too 

 many star boarders in our orchards, 

 trees that are eating their heads off, so 

 to speak. These trees come under sev- 

 eral classes: First, trees of very low 

 vitality, that are weak and always will 

 be. Second, the trees of wrong varie- 

 ties. The comijetition is going to be so 

 keen that all orchardists must find the 

 varieties that do well under their con- 

 ditions and grow to the highest degree 

 of perfection. An examination of some 

 of the apples on exhibition at this show 

 demonstrates that if these aijjdes are 

 typical specimens from the communi- 

 ties in which they are grown then 

 there are certain communities which 

 should drop some varieties. 



Let us all get together and work hard 

 on this problem of determining the 

 costs, ancl then strive to reduce them. 

 If we could have saved one cent a box 

 on each box this year on our orchard 

 costs in the Pacific Northwest, we 

 would have a fund of $90,000 to 

 .$100,000. Such a sum would go a long 

 ways toward solving some of the mar- 

 keting i)roblems of the day, and cer- 

 tainly would prove a magnificent ad- 

 vertising fund for the apple. I am con- 

 fident that with the hearty co-operation 

 of all we can reduce this loss very 

 materiallv. 



"The conference (International Rail- 

 way Congress) established beyond (pies- 

 tion, I think, the supremacy of the 

 .\merican railroad from the stan(li)oint 

 of elTiciencv." — Hon. Franklin K. Lane. 



The Sprague Canning Comi)any of 

 Chicago issues a very attractive little 

 organ called "Cannery Notes." This is 

 issued monlhh and can be secured by 

 writing for il. 



