March, 1934] 



Studies in Economics of Apple Orcharding 



Table 6 — Distribution of individual incomes by years. The identity of the individual 

 farms is not shown. The incomes are arranged each year in order 



of sice of income. 



* This is different from the average in Table 5, because some of the farms were in the study 

 only 2 years. 



DISTRIBUTION OF TIME ON APPLES 

 Harvesting 



The amount and the distribution of time spent on the apple crop vary 

 widely. The individual orchardist has the choice of selling apples tree-run 

 at harvest time or of following through to any stage in the marketing 

 process. For example, in the case of Farm 8, the grading, packing, and 

 marketing were performed by a co-operative association. Even the haul- 

 ing of the apples from the farm to the packing plant was done by a truck 

 contractor employed by the association. In this case about 21 per cent of 

 the total field time was spent on operations prior to harvest, and 76 per 

 cent on harvesting. The yields were very high, and under these circum- 

 stances picking and hauling apples to the barn constituted about three- 

 fourths of the year's work. Practically nothing but apples was produced. 



On Farm 7 three grades of apples were packed in boxes. The apples 

 of the two best grades were accurately sized, individually wrapped in 

 oiled paper and placed in the box in definite arrangement. While there 

 was storage available on this farm, all the apples were graded and packed 

 as they came from the trees. Hence, at harvest time two crews were em- 

 ployed simultaneously, one to pick and haul, the other to grade and pack 

 the apples. Since there were only two regular men, including the oper- 

 ator on this farm, most of the work of grading and packing would have 

 to be short-time help whether apples were packed immediately and then 

 stored, or stored and packed at odd times later. Thus, the labor costs in 

 grading and packing were largely out-of-pocket expenses, and since this 

 operator was attempting to supply a special demand for high quality fruit 

 which could be sold at any time it was advantageous to grade and pack 

 direct from the tree. 



