Vol. LXVII. No. 3049. NEW YORK, JULY 4, 1908. weekly, $i.oo per year. 
COST OF A BARREL OF APPLES. 
The Income from an Acre. 
I have been expecting more exact figures on the 
comparative cost of growing apples. A loose way to 
figure is to compare gross results without giving any 
data as to market conditions, local buying, scarcity 
and cost of the “extras” in fertilizer and labor. It 
is the net returns after paying fair interest on capital 
which make one system of growing better than an¬ 
other. In Nova Scotia good clean land in pleasant 
neighborhoods is worth from $30 to $40 per acre, 
muriate of potash, $45; nitrate of soda, $63; sulphate 
of ammonia, $67; potato fertilizer, $31.50; basic slag, 
$20, cash same Spring. And here let me say my 
experiments on orchard with and without fertilizer 
have not shown any increase in crop on good 20-year- 
old orchard from fertilizer, when the soil was in a 
good enough condition at start to grow a Crimson 
clover cover crop. So in the two-acre orchard of 
which I give figures out of 80 trees, 10 trees only 
have been allowed 100 pounds of a potato complete 
fertilizer each year, for the last four years. As 
fertilizing is to a great extent a science of trial 
to get, from $3.25 for 1000-pound horses to $3.50 
for 1200-pound team and driver. Cost of working 
each acre in representative Nova Scotia soil: 
Interest on one acre land and trees, allowing com- 
.pound interest from one year to 10 years on labor 
and capital, $240 at 5 per cent.$12.00 
Pruning and hauling brush.;.75 
Plowing 114 acre per day at $3.. 2.40 
Harrowing 8 times at 50 cents. 4.00 
Picking stones each year.75 
Seed 15 pounds Crimson clover at 12 cents. 1.8.9 
Spraying three times (no Sau Jos6 scale), tools and 
labor. 6.50 
200 gallons Bordeaux, two pounds Paris-green.... 1.80 
$30.00 
To show what this produces I have two acres with 
A GrANT ELM ON AN ILLINOIS FARM. Fig. 245.. 
sometimes with buildings and sometimes without. 
Other farms equally good but four or five miles 
away will only cost $15 per acre. Young men get $20 
per month and board, which is worth $8 a month, 
for the seven Summer months. Good careful 
teamsters get $2 to $4 more. Taxes are light. Laws 
have been passed which fix definite standards for 
apple barrels and for grades. Our fruit inspectors 
do as much to enforce this law as is consistent 
with an otherwise slack code of commercial practice. 
Besides, orcharding makes people keen, and the 
sharpers get a prune back every year or two. 
Bone meal costs $26 to $30; acid phosphate, $18; 
and error I have this year shifted from complete to 
a phosphoric acid fertilizer on the same 10 trees. 
Unhappily the trees without fertilizer have borne 
heavier than the same variety fertilized, so as it is 
only one bag on two acres and that seems a handicap 
I do not take if into account. 
A good team costs $200 apiece for 1200-pound 
horses, and I allow $125 each for grain and hay. In 
Winter work is slack but for two years my team 
worked in lumber woods, getting 2 l /> months’ hoard, 
and earning $60 net for team per year. Another man 
had a horse killed by a tree without compensation. 
Team work in Spring costs by the day, when possible 
80 trees now 22 years old, set in 1886. For its first 
14 years it was occasionally potatoed with 15 tons of 
manure per acre and occasionally hayed. I have 
taken off one crop of hay in 1903, but will not do 
it again. My figures are in 96-quart Canadian barrels, 
Government standard; apples shaken down: 
1904.. 80 trees 18 years old.136.70 barrels 
1905.. 50 trees 19 years old. 71.35 barrels 
1906. .80 trees 20 years old.158.10 barrels 
1907.. 80 trees 21 years old.248.31 barrels 
Total on two acres for four years.614.46 barrels 
On one acre average per year is 76.81 barrels un¬ 
packed. On packing this will lose 12 per cent, giving 
67 barrels packed. My net prices over a total of 12 
