92 



SUMMARY OF THE COST OF GROWING AN ORCHARD 

 TO BEARING AGE 



Two very important factors are supposed to operate to 

 deter many persons from going into the growing of apples; 

 namely, the large amount of capital required for the enter- 

 prise and the long time necessary to wait for returns. The 

 records here presented substantiate this supposition. They 

 show that in one case it cost $159.64 an acre to grow an ap- 

 ple orchard to ten years of age; and in another $95.01 to 

 grow the trees to five years of age ; while in a third the cost 

 of setting and growing one year was $19.72 an acre. But the 

 records also show that it is possible to offset this cost to a 

 greater or less extent by growing crops between the treo 

 rows and by filling the orchard with earlier bearing fruits. 

 By following this plan the cost of the ten-year-old orchard 

 was reduced from $159.64 to $52.70 an acre ; of the five-year- 

 old orchard, from $95.01 to an actual profit of .$36.27 an 

 acre; of the four-year-old orchard to a net profit of $10.33 

 an acre, while in the case of the one-year-old orchard the 

 entire expense was met the first year, 



THE COST OF GROWING A 6.6 ACRE APPLE ORCHARD 

 FOR TEN YEARS. 



The orchard for which the following figures were given 

 was set in the spring of 1903 and the records given begin 

 with that year and end with 1912 covering a period of ten 

 years in all. Throughout this period other crops have been 

 grown between the tree rows, thereby offsetting to a larg-2 

 extent the cost of growing the orchard. The year the trees 

 were set the crops were allowed to come within three feet of 

 the trees. As the trees grew older this space was widened 

 until during the season of 1912 in eight feet of space on either 

 side of the tree row no crop was grown. This space was 

 kept well cultivated each year. 



Forty trees at the north end of the orchard are pears, 

 but they have received substantially the same treatment as 

 the apples and have not affected the cost. In 1904, one year 

 after the apple trees, 211 plum trees were set as fillers one 



