Annual Cost Factors in Groiving Peaches 343 



equipment investment apart from the land is given at $15 

 to $20 to approximately $30 an acre. 



Barden and Eustace ^ have given a detailed financial 

 account with a fifteen-acre peach orchard in Michigan which 

 is instructive and of value here. The orchard contained 

 about 1550 trees planted 20 by 20 feet and made up of the 

 leading varieties to be found in the usual Michigan orchard. 

 Manual labor, except pruning, was charged at 15 cents an 

 hour; 20 cents an hour was allowed for pruning. Horse 

 labor is rated at 15 cents an hour for a team of two horses. 

 Hauling to market is a flat rate of $2 a trip. The figures for 

 the sixth year of the orchard (which was for the season of 

 1912) are apparently typical of this orchard in full bearing. 

 They are given in Table X. 



It will be noted in the table that a flat rate charge 

 of five dollars for the fifteen-acre orchard is made for the 

 equipment and that interest on the land is included in the 

 account ; but obviously there are other overhead expenses, 

 such as supervision and taxes, which if included would 

 materially increase the cost of production, and decrease 

 accordingly the net profit. 



The increasing annual costs in the development of an 

 orchard from its first to its eighth year is shown by McCue ^ 

 in reporting on the Delaware station orchard. The orchard 

 in question consists of 1033 trees, comprising 55 Champion, 

 320 Belle, and 658 Elberta. The trees are planted 20 by 20 

 feet ; the orchard, therefore, contains slightly more than 9^ 

 acres of land. The orchard is maintained for experimental 

 purposes and is divided into many different blocks for 

 fertilizer and cover-crop investigations. It is, therefore, 



1 Mich. Expt. Sta. Special Bull. 63. 



2 Del. Expt. Sta. Bull. 113. 



