FRUIT-GROWING 



FRUIT-GROWING 



353 



Cost. 



The cost of setting up a fruit-growing 

 business depends on many circumstances and 

 conditions, chiefly on whether the fruit is 

 destined for the general trade or the fancy 

 trade and whether clean tillage is practiced. 

 The present-day fruit-grower is a man who 

 invests confidently and heavily in apparatus 

 and supplies ; and this is characteristic of 

 the present tendency in American agricul- 

 ture. Better and heavier horses, stronger 

 and more powerful tools and machines, 

 heavier fertilizing, more thorough-going 

 methods, are among the things that are 

 to save farming from weakness, desul- 

 toriness and incompetency. 



The experience of growers is the only 

 safe guide. The intending fruit-grower 

 should visit representative fruit-farms to 

 determine these points. Estimates of act- 

 ual fruit-growers are given on pages 

 187-193 in Volume I. As a further con- 

 tribution, two statements from successful 

 men are now added. 



The first' of these statements is from a 

 thorough-going fruit-grower in western 

 New York who practices very clean 

 tillage : " The expense and equip- 

 ment on a 100-acre fruit-farm de- 

 pends very much on the kind and 

 varieties of fruit and whether the 

 sod-and-mulch method or thorough 

 tillage is practiced. I am a strong 

 advocate of thorough tillage, cover- 

 crops and commercial fertilizers; and 

 one can readily figure that such a 

 system involves considerably more 

 expense than the mulch systems. After 

 nearly ruining a ten-acre apple orchard 

 by the sod-and-mulch method and then 

 bringing it back into very profitable bear- 

 ing by changing to thorough tillage, 

 cover - crops and fertilizers, one can 

 scarcely wonder why I speak so strongly 

 in regard to this method of handling an 

 orchard. 



"The expense of tilling and caring for 

 one hundred acres of fruit divided into 

 forty acres of apples, forty acres of 

 peaches and pears and twenty acres of 

 grapes, will run about as follows : It 

 would require eight good horses ; four 

 plows ; two spring-tooth harrows ; 

 one double-action cutaway harrow ; 

 one solid disk-harrow; one Planet Jr. 

 orchard cultivator ; two-horse culti- 

 vator, on wheels; one spike -tooth 

 iron -frame lever harrow ; one duck- 

 tooth wood-frame Waterport cultiva- 

 tor, with extension arm; one Syracuse 

 grape-hoe with spring-tooth attach- 

 ment; one land roller, preferably 

 steel ; one pivot-axle two-horse culti- 

 vator; two Planet Jr. one-horse culti- 

 vators ; one gas power sprayer ; one 



4i 



Fig. 503. 

 Pruning tools. The saws and 

 hand-shears (3, 4, 6) are the 

 most useful of these tools. 



potato and vineyard sprayer ; one three- 

 horse fruit wagon, capacity 8,000 pounds ; 

 one two-horse fruit wagon, capacity 4,000 

 pounds ; one two-horse fruit wagon, capacity 

 2,000 pounds ; three grub hoes ; six common 

 hoes; three pruning - saws ; three pruning- 

 shears ; one grain-drill with fertilizer attach- 

 ment ; one Calhoun grass-seeder ; one fruit- 

 packing house centrally located, with the 

 necessary picking-baskets, bushel crates and 

 grape -trays and sorting tables; rubber 

 stencils and many small supplies ; six good 

 men, including foreman. 



"As to the amount of money necessary 

 to conduct such a plant, much will depend 

 on the soil, climatic conditions and 'nerve' 

 of the man at the helm. I have found 

 that it does not pay to be niggardly in 

 regard to putting money into such an 

 enterprise, as our balance sheet proves." 



The second statement is by a successful 

 grower in central Kansas, on the^ moist, 

 loose bottoms of the Arkansas river, who 

 does not practice clean tillage : " There 

 are about one hundred acres in my apple 

 orchard, and it is therefore easy to give 

 an idea as to what will be necessary 

 in the w ay of horses, tools and labor 

 to work luch an area. At the present 

 age of tl e orchard, say twelve years, 

 one heavy team of horses will do all 

 the disking and surface harrowing, 

 as well as pulling the power sprayer 

 and the loose brush from the orchard. 

 One good heavy team will do all the 

 work for a 100-acre orchard satis- 

 factorily, at least in the way we 

 work them here, in an orchard with prac- 

 tically all winter varieties. Taking care 

 of fruit in the fall makes it necessary to 

 hire teams to haul fruit back to the farm 

 to store, as well as to help haul the loose 

 fruit in the orchard to the shed, which 

 will require about one team. In other 

 words, two good teams will haul empty 

 boxes to the orchard and return "them 

 filled with i fruit to the shed. 



"My idea of tools in working an orchard 

 after it has attained the age of ten or 

 twelve years is simply a disk-harrow or 

 possibly a harrow provided with hori- 

 zontal knives. One man beginning March 

 1 with one good team will do all the 

 cultivating, haul all brush, pull the 

 power sprayer and do any mowing of 

 weeds that may be necessary. In a 

 100-acre orchard, his labor should 

 be supplemented by that of three to 

 spray the trees. 



"The crops of corn raised between 

 the young apple trees will amply 

 take care of any expense in raising 

 this orchard to the bearing age. The 

 first year one would not lose any 

 corn, the second year only one row. 



£23 



