40 BULLETIN 518, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



TOTAL MAINTENANCE COST. 



Considering all items pertaining to the maintenance of the or- 

 chard in the 30 clean-cultural orchards there is found to be a total 

 of 133.75 man-hours and 90.28 horse-hours per acre, at a net labor 

 cost for maintenance of $43.63 per. acre, or $0.20 per box. In the 

 case of the 24 mulch-crop orchards there are 152.75 man-hours and 

 70.82 horse-hours for annual maintenance, with a cost of $45 per 

 acre, or $0,197 per box. When both kinds of orchards are considered, 

 there are 142.19 man-hours and 81.63 horse-hours, with a total main- 

 tenance labor cost per acre of $39.97, or $0.18 per box. This is 47 

 per cent of all labor cost, and 17.6 per cent of the total cost of 

 production. 



HANDLING THE CROP. 



The labor cost of handling the crop is the largest of all labor costs, 

 and since it is necessary to handle the fruit in a comparatively 

 short time the cash expense for harvest labor represents the largest 

 cash expense of the season. The handling cost includes picking, 

 hauling shooks to the ranch, hauling out empty boxes from the 

 packing shed to the orchard, and hauling in full loose boxes of fruit 

 to the packing house. It also includes* labor in the packing house, 

 sorting, packing, nailing, and stamping, waiting on the packers, fore- 

 man, trucker, or any other extra packing-house labor. The last labor 

 item of handling is hauling the packed boxes to the station. This 

 handling or harvesting cost makes up 59 per cent of the total labor 

 cost, or 22 per cent of the total annual cost of production. The 

 handling cost per box was found to be very uniform and varied but 

 little except as affected by yields and acre costs. 



PICKING. 



Harvesting the fruit from the trees is done by hand, either from 

 the ground or from ladders. Ten-foot stepladders, costing from 

 25 to 50 cents per foot, are most common in use. Picking pails and 

 bags of various description are used. These picking bags or buckets 

 hold about one-half bushel and usually empty from the bottom. 

 Two usually fill a picking box. The boxes are not filled so full as to 

 prevent one being placed on top of another in hauling them in. 



Picking ordinarily begins late in August with the Gravenstein 

 and ends with the Yellow Newtown and Ben Davis late in October. 

 As over 80 per cent of the output of the valley is Yellow Newtown 

 and Esopus, most of the harvesting comes during the month of 

 October. The labor is usually hired by the day. In a few cases 

 men hire pickers by piecework; that is, the picker is paid so much 



