798 THE FRUIT INDUSTRY IN XEW YORK STATE 



pay a profit under ten years, and in many cases it is fifteen years 

 instead of ten. 



Furthermore, the growing of crops between trees increases the 

 turn over of labor and materials on a farm. Professor Warren 

 has quite conclusively shown, from the records on something 

 like 3,500 farms in this state, that the large business is the most 

 profitable. You can sometimes enlarge a farm by growing two 

 crops on the same land, just the same as by buying more land. 

 If you can grow a crop of cabbage, beans or what not in your 

 young orchard, you have increased the size of your business. 

 Every farm must have so much labor you hire one man or two 

 men for a year. Some of the time that labor is well used, and 

 some of the time you have to hunt around a little to find something 

 for the men to do. That man, as a rule, gets the largest net re- 

 turns, who occupies the time of his men most effectively who 

 keeps them working on products to be sold. 



Then take the matter of horses. It costs $120 a year, on an 

 average, to keep a horse, and our figures show it is nearer $140. 

 Whether you work that horse part of the time or all of the time, 

 you have to pay for his keep just the same. The average farm 

 horse does not work much more than one-third of his time. If 

 you can find something for the horse to do that brings in money, 

 you have made some gain. At the same time you are using your 

 man and your machinery more effectively. The more service you 

 can get out of your land, machinery, and labor man and horse 

 the better off you are. 



The disadvantages of intercrops are their inconvenience. They 

 increase, slightly, the expense of cultivation. In the case of some 

 crops we have the inconvenience of spraying and of harvesting. 

 We all know these inconveniences and we may as well admit them. 

 But, if it pays in financial returns to put up with them, we had 

 better do it. 



ACTUAL RETURNS AND EXPENSES 



I shall give some figures on a twelve-year-old apple orchard set 

 thirty-six feet each way, filled one way with plums and pears, 

 so there is a space thirty-six feet wide running one way. On 

 this 7%-acre orchard, containing something over two hundred 

 trees, we have spent, in the last twelve years, $1,579.50, or $208.93 



