134 The Commercial Apple Industry 



There are many obvious advantages in this system. If an 

 orchard is the main enterprise, it will usually be given the 

 care and detailed attention necessary to insure its success 

 as a separate proposition. 



However, highly specialized orcharding leaves out two 

 very important points which must be considered — the 

 danger of low prices and the difficulty in employing labo^ 

 effectively. There is always the possibility of a period 

 of low fruit prices, in which case the old adage " Do not 

 have all your eggs in one basket," holds true. One-crop 

 farming is successful from the standpoint of heavy yields 

 and high quality production, but the average grower or 

 farmer needs an income every year to meet his current 

 expenses. If some year the frost takes his crop or prices 

 are so low as to be below cost of production, he has nothing 

 for his investment or year's labor, and in the case of two 

 or three successive failures, such as have occurred in many 

 sections, it is only the exceptional grower who can survive. 

 Such conditions actually force farmers into diversification. 

 It is much better for a grower to plan originally for a 

 sufficient degree of diversification to insure his living in 

 case of crop failure, for if he is later forced to adjust his 

 business, extra land may not be available and the future 

 of his whole farm organization may be seriously impaired 

 and disrupted. In many cases, orchard enterprises which 

 would have been successful had they been connected with 

 general farms, failed for lack of income in poor years. 



Another principal advantage in diversification is that it 

 insures better distribution of labor. Help may be hired 

 and profitably employed by the month or year. In the 

 same way, the owner or operator may engage himself in 

 productive labor on the farm throughout the entire year. 



