1 66 THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 



While these nine cities took over one-half the 1915 peach-crop, twenty- 

 one cities took 3,018 carloads. In addition to those already named, these 

 cities are as follows: 



Newark, M. J 77 Cars Wilkes-Barre 50 Cars 



Dayton, 6') " Schenectady 46 



Albany 67 " Watertown 44 



Utica 64 " Indianapolis 43 



Baltimore ,5 " Toledo 37 



Troy 52 " Providence 36 



Total 3,018 Cars 



COSTS IN GROWING PEACHES 



Peach-growing is a game of chance from start to finish; advantages 

 and disadvantages in location are exceedingly changeable; risks to tree 

 and crop attendant on weather are many; the trees are beset on all sides 

 by diseases and parasites for two of which in New York, yellows and little- 

 peach, there is no preventive, antidote nor alleviation; transportation is 

 perilous, competition keen, and markets fitful. Add variability in invest- 

 ment and the difficulties in calculating profits in peach-growing are 

 apparent. On the other hand, keeping accounts in peach-growing is not 

 as difficult and complicated as in growing other fruits. The peach is not 

 as long-lived, barring accidents the trees bear more regularly, the crop is 

 quickly disposed of, orchard-operations among growers are more uniform, 

 and, no doubt, the very fact that the peach partakes so much of specula- 

 tion makes growers a little keener on striking balances at the end of the 

 season. At any rate there is a great body of material in the reports of the 

 horticultural societies in New York on costs in peach-growing and from 

 these data, together with notes taken for several years, w^e venture to esti- 

 mate the present costs per acre of the several items entering into peach- 

 production. To attempt to go further and calculate profits, with all of the 

 inconstant factors of yields and markets, would be guessing pure and 

 simple. 



Let us consider the cost of prodixction in a ten-acre orchard. This 

 unit is now, however, rather too small, for more and more growers are 

 giving up general farming, finding peach-growing an exacting, full-time 

 vocation. Often enough it is successfully combined with the growing of 

 other fruits, but less and less so with the growing of farm-crops. The 

 first item in cost of production is interest on investment. What value is 

 to be placed on a New York peach-orchard? 



