30 N. H. Agricultural Experiment Station [Bulletin 279 



not include tasks done during the noon hour, evenings, or hoUdays. Farm 

 3 reported the largest personal item — 1,565 hours for three years, or an 

 average of 522 hours per year. Number 4 was lowest with 239 hours, or 

 an average of 79 hours per year. The per cent of time on personal items 

 varied from 1.1 on Farm 4 to 6.2 on Farm 5. The average, nearly three 

 per cent, seems considerable, yet for the most part, this work was done 

 when orchard work was slack. In most instances the time was devoted 

 directly to better living. 



Work on real estate required a little over 700 hours per farm annually, 

 approximately 270 hours on new and 440 hours on maintenance of old. 

 This includes cutting brush along the fences, picking and hauling stones 

 from fields, hauling gravel, repairing or building barns or packing sheds. 



Approximately 189 hours per farm were used annually in caring for 

 equipment. General management required 345 hours. This item was large 

 on farms employing several men, but on a percentage basis the total mis- 

 cellaneous time was less. 



Work on horses was considered a miscellaneous use of time. The 

 amount was estimated by allocating the daily chores between horses and 

 productive livestock. 



The total of all time on miscellaneous items ranged from 1,072 to 3,714 

 hours per farm annually. On seven farms for the three-year period a 

 total of 35,892 hours was so used, or an average of 1,795 hour annually 

 per farm. While much of this labor is in slack times when field work is 

 not pressing, it constitutes a large overhead that cannot be ignored and 

 should be kept at a minimum. 



SIZE OF ORCHARDS 



The size of orchard is an important factor in low cost apple production. 

 There is probably no best size for all conditions ; but in any given situa- 

 tion, taking into account the abilities of the man and his available capital, 

 there is a size that should give optimum returns. This adjusting of num- 

 ber of trees to the man is very difficult and cannot be done arbitrarily. 



In the first place, any given orchard is continually changing in size, by 

 growth or decadence of the trees, or perhaps by removal of fillers. For 

 instance, a man may wish to have 1,000 mature trees, but in nearly all in- 

 stances he will have to be content with fewer at first. Were he to start 

 on a farm with no mature orchard, his labor requirements would be low 

 at first and would gradually increase until maturity was reached after 30 

 or 40 years. Subsequently, unless replacements were planned with ex- 

 ceeding care, the orchard would decrease in size. In the early stages the 

 operator generally looks on orcharding as a part time occupation and 

 depends on other enterprises to use the major part of his time. 



New methods place in the hands of the operator new opportunities to 

 get the imjiortant work done more quickly and to that extent have an im- 

 portant bearing on the size of orchard as an economic unit. As an illus- 

 tration, one 10-acre orchard was a rather ambitious project when planted 

 50 years ago. It meant plowing and cultivating the stony tract with oxen 

 each year. The owner anticipated that he would have to harvest the apples 

 largely with his family labor and then haul eight miles to the nearest rail- 

 road center over rough and difficult roads. 



