16 



BULLETIN" 334, U. S. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 



Table I. — Yield and receipts from a plantation of blueberries near Elkhart, Ind., 



1910 to 1915, inclusive. 



Year. 



1910 (a year of "almost total failure" because of late spring 



freezes) 



1911 



1912 



1913 



1914 (a year of severe midsummer drought). 

 1915 



Average for the 6 years. 



Yield 

 per acre. 



Quarts. 

 419 

 2,266 

 2,379 

 1,770 

 1,397 

 2,214 



1,741 



Price (ap- 

 proximate 



average 

 per quart). 



Cents. 



m 



12§ 



12| 

 151 

 14£ 

 14i 



141 



Receipts 

 per acre. 



$71.87 

 292.44 

 305. 75 

 267. 64 

 201.94 

 321. 00 



243. 44 



Profits 

 per acre. 



139 

 147 

 139 

 92 

 170 



116 



The annual expenses for weeding, cultivation, and irrigation were 

 about $20 per acre. The cost of picking was 5 cents a quart. The 

 general cost of maintenance of the equipment was about $2 per acre 

 per year, the crates and boxes being used repeatedly. The computa- 

 tion includes an estimated annual charge of $12 per acre for interest, 

 $2 for taxes, and $4 for depreciation or sinking fund. 



It must be borne in mind that these figures are based on the yields 

 from wild bushes transplanted without selection as to individual 

 productiveness or the size of the berries. With bushes propagated 

 from selected varieties, the yield should be greater and the berries 

 much larger, this greater size probably effecting a reduction in the 

 cost of picking and certainly an increase in the selling price. 



Only a beginning has been made in the improvement of the blue- 

 berry. In a series of experiments involving the selection of superior 

 wild strains, the growing of hybrids, and the forcing of choice 

 varieties to quick fruiting by budding them on strong seedling 

 stocks, berries seven-eighths of an inch in diameter have already 

 been produced in the greenhouse. The yield and profits from such 

 bushes in field plantations are not yet known. (For an illustration 

 of a cluster of very large berries, see PI. XVII.) 



CONCLUSION. 



The introduction of the blueberry into agriculture has a much more 

 profound significance than the mere addition of one more agri- 

 cultural industry to those already in existence. Blueberries thrive 

 best in soils so acid as to be considered worthless for ordinary agri- 

 cultural purposes. Blueberry culture, therefore, not only promises to 

 add to the general welfare through the utilization of land almost value- 

 less otherwise, but it offers a profitable industry to individual land- 

 owners in districts in which general agricultural conditions are 

 especially hard and. unpromising, and it suggests the possibility of 

 the further utilization of such lands by means of other crops adapted 

 to acid conditions. 1 



1 For a discussion of the principles of acid-soil agriculture in districts in which the cost 

 of lime is prohibitory, consult " The Agricultural Utilization of Acid Lands by Means of 

 Acid-Tolerant Crops," United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 6, 1913. 



o 



