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Show Jqst OF PRODUCING APPLES problems of Fruit Growers Made Subject Sub-ject of Study by Department of Agriculture. quired bv the United States Depnrt-i? Depnrt-i? P ment of Agriculture.) To determine the nninuil cost of np-ple np-ple production per box mul to gather uch Information ns to different methods meth-ods of orchard management practiced bv tlie growers of the Yakima valley, Washington, as might have a bearing upon cost of production, specialists of the United States department of agriculture' in the summer of 1915 conducted con-ducted a detailed study of 120 representative repre-sentative orchards in that section. Their findings have been published In Department Bulletin No. 614, which la the fourth of a series of bulletins on the cost of apple production in four of the leading fruit-growing valleys of the Northwest. The Yakima valley is a specialized apple-growing section in the south central cen-tral part of Washington. It has a y t- si' , ' J $ ' 1 Packing Apples in Yakima Valley. larger acreage of fruit than any other county in the state, in 1914 there being 47.S29 acres in fruits, of which 41,955, or 88 per cent, were in applea. In 1916 7,000 carloads of apples were shipped from this valley. There are two systems of orchard management practiced in this section, the clean cultivation method and the mulch system. Of the orchards studied, 75 were under the clean-cultural system sys-tem and 45 under the mulch-crop system. sys-tem. It was found that the annual cost per box for the clean-culture orchards or-chards was slightly over 80 cents, while under the other system the cost was slightly over 79 cents. However, the orchards that were cultivated yielded on an average 54 boxes per Acre more. When the total of all costs of" the 120 orchards studied was considered, there was found to be an annual acre cost of $345.68, or a fraction of over 80 cents per box. This is figured on the average annual yield of 432 boxes per acre. The two groups of costs which go to make up this total are the labor cost, which amounted to 35 cents Per box, and the material and fixed costs, which amounted to a little over 45 cents per box. The labor cost Up to the time of harvest amounted to a little over 14 cents per box, or 41.08 Per cent of the total net labor cost. Spraying is an annual practice, the codling moth probably being the worst enemy. On an average, four sprayings were made per year and the average cost per acre amounted to $25.14, less than 6 cents per box, 7.27 per cent of the cost of production. |