88 



crops if used, taxes on the land, interest on the value of the, 

 equipment used in the orchard, or rent of the same, interest 

 on the land, the proper share of the general farm charges, 

 such as insurance of buildings or store and packing houses, 

 telephone service, general management, etc. It has been 

 necessary to omit this last charge in these records because it 

 was not definitely known, except for the last year. 



It will be seen that all these charges may vary consider- 

 ably according to farm conditions, land values, etc. Our 

 only comment here is that the cheaper a grower can produce 

 apples the better able he is to compete with other growers of 

 this fruit. We have found that the most variable factors are 

 land values and hence interest and taxes. The amount and 

 the cost of the labor put upon the crop also varies consider- 

 ably, but this is partly reflected in the selling price. Al- 

 most needless to say the accuracy and comi)leteness of the 

 record is a very important factor. Now let us see how er- 

 rors have been mostly eliminated in our work by the method 

 used in gathering the figures. 



METHOD OF OBTAINING COSTS. 



As I have said, the forms upon which these records were 

 obtained were worked out by the U. S. Department of Agri- 

 culture. They were in two parts ; a labor report and a cash 

 report. The labor sheet is simply a diary, such as you or I 

 would keep, being the hours of the day at the left and the 

 ruled columns at the right of the page for the field or crop 

 designation and for the horses and man hours. A sample 

 of this sheet follows : — 



