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 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 ; rubbcr 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 9.y of horses, tools and labor to work mob 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 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.