The Roswell daily record. [volume] (Roswell, N.M.) 1903-current, 1908-02-26

BY this term 1 do not mean the
selling value of an acre of orchard.
Or it's value to the home and family
ing, but l refer to investment value
the commercial value. How much is
it worth to produce income? l do
not mean an acre of poor trees, or
of good trees of poor varieties. 1t
is not hard to find many such acres.
And we can find acres of trees, where
everything is just about right. where
the producing value is very large.
What l wish to consider is the value
of an acre of orchard Of the best va
rieties, of the best kinds of fruit for
us to grow II this valley, that is up
to the highest standard that we can
attain under our conditions.
1t is, of course. unusual to find the
We must take both larger and small
er areas, and reckon from them. In
fact, ! have never known of but one
orchard of exactly one acre, the crops
from which l have seen and measur-
ed. But have known of many small
er groups of trees. and their yields;
and of larger paintings and their
crops, or their prices; from all of
which we can find the approximate
value of our unit of single acre.
First let us consider PEACHES
fruit of such uncertainty of yield in
the estimate of most persons that
they do not plant the trees | do not
know of as much as one acre of
peach trees in all the district about
Roswell. l believe this to be an un-
There are frosty locations where
peaches will only bear once in several
years. But there are others where
crops have been good for four years
in succession. Now if there is man
with good peach land, who dares to
plant as much as one acre of this
delightful fruit, how much value has
he good reason to expect to produce?
Peach trees bear you1g-in two years
or three. They bear very heavy crops.
all enemies in our climate No borers.
No worms. No scale. No rot. A good
four year old peach tree should bear
10Ofb, or more. | have seen whole
blocks of trees average twice that
But not here. 1t was in a region
where there were peach trees. l have
heard of yields of eight to ten hun
dred pounds from very large trees.
Two years ago l saw one full farm
wagon load of very handsome
peaches sold in Roswell, and the
owner said they all came off from
two trees. They were from the Hope
district. The weight was about 1,500
pounds. / believe the selling price
was 3 cents. FNorty-five dollars from
two trees, Now if there were an
acre of such trees-a whole acre
planted twenty feet apart each way
and one can't see any reason why
there should not have been-if they
had been near to Roswell, or to Ha-
german; and if they had been packed
right AID shipped right in four good
refrigerator cars to any one of hun
dred good peach markets within our
reach, they would have sold for
enough to have netted as much per
tree as these two trees yielded the
grower. This is safe to say. for
have myself had car loads of peaches
sell in Chicago for ten cents pound,
or jlist twice as much as / am figuring
these four imaginary carloads from
the one acre of orchard to have
brought. These peaches from Hope
were far superior in size, beauty.
keeping quality and high flavor to any
l ever saw shipped from aly of the
great peach districts, to any of tha
great peach markets of America. But
thew were no better than Roswell or
Carlsbad peaches What would this
acre of peaches have yielded? With
a hundred and eight trees-and there
should have been as maryland sup
posing all the trees to have averaged
as well as these two-which is by no
means beyond believing. there would
have been over so. 900 pounds of frnit
to the acre. or four standard car
loads. which would have aetted
50 400. This seems a large estimate
of quantity of crop; but as l have
known of one acre of pears yielding
as large a quantity. it seems to me
a thinkable proposition But let us
reduce fhis crop By dividing by two
the nrice need never be divided-and
let us suppose we have a crop but
every other year. and what does the
peach crop average for ali~ the years
of It's bearing life. in net money? 1t
means 100000 income per acre. which
:. tan mar cent on q six thousand dol.