16 BLTLLETI25- 334, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGEICULTUEE. 
Table I. — Yield and receipts from a plantation of bluel)erries near Elkliart, Ind., 
1910 to 1915, inclusive. 
Year. 
Yield 
per acre. 
Price (ap- 
proximate 
average 
per quart). 
Receipts 
per acre. 
Profits 
per acre. 
1910 (a year of "alraost total failure" because of late spring 
freezes) 
Quarts. 
419 
2.266 
2,379 
1,770 
1,397 
2,214 
Cents. 
i3 
121 
15i 
Hi 
14i 
S71. 87 
292.44 
305. 75 
267. 64 
201.94 
321.00 
$10 
139 
147 
139 
92 
170 
1911 
1912 
1913 
1914 (a year of severe midsummer drougiit) 
1915 
Average for the 6 years 
1,741 
14| 243.44 
116 
The annual expenses for weeding, cultiYation, and irrigation were 
about $20 per acre. The cost of piclring 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 $1 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 indi^'idual 
productiyeness or the size of the berries. "With bushes propagated 
from selected yarieties, the yield should be gi^eater 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 improyement of the blue- 
berry. In a series of experiments inyolying the selection of superior 
wild strains, the growing of hybrids, and the forcing of choice 
yarieties to quick fruiting by budding them on strong seedling 
stocks, berries seyen-eighths of an inch in diameter haye already 
been produced in the gTeenhouse. The 34eld and profits from such 
bushes in field plantations are not yet known. (For an illustration 
of a cluster of yer}^ large berries, see PI. XYII.) 
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 thriye 
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 yalue- 
less otherwise, but it offers a profitable industry to indiAddual 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 add conditions.^ 
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 
