Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-02-13
Agricultural Help
THE CARE OF ORCHARDS.
Cost of Caring for the Orchards at
Highmoor Farm, in Terms of Ma
terials and Labor.

In the management of farm which is
run primarily for experimental purposes
and as laboratory adjunct to the Maine
Agricultural Experiment Station it is OBJ
viously impossible to keep in dollars and
cents the cost of operation of any one line
of work and the profit or loss arising
therefrom. In selecting the cost of hand
ling a single item money values are likely
to be misleading. If only the time ac-
tually used by the men and the teams
upon special lines of work is charged up
it will be found at the end of the year
that there are very considerable items of
cost that have not been charged to any
department, but are borne by the farm
as a whole. Furthermore it is not posi-
BILE to estimate how much of the salary of
the Director and mis- associates in scienti-
fic work should be charged up against the
management of the place. There are
times in the year when it is neces-
sary in the management of Highmoor
Farm to have quite a large crew
obviously they cannot be employed mere
~ at the time when they are wanted for
orchard or other special work, but work
has to be found for them at other times
that is not directly profitable. How much
of that time and labor should be charged
against orchard management no one can
figure. 1t is possible, however, to give
pretty clearly the cost of the management
of the orchards in hours of labor, pounds
of fertilizer and spraying materials, etc.
for the trees that are in solid blocks. OBJ
viously the cost of management of the
trees not in solid blocks is greater than
here named. 1t costs as much to cult
vate an acre that has few trees as one
that is fully set
Outside of the orchards that are run
for special experimental purpose, the or
chards are plowed as early as possible in
the spring. are cultivated about five
times, are pruned, are sprayed three
times for insects and fungi, are carefully
looked over for insect enemies such as
borers, and at the last cultivation are
seeded with rye for a cover crop.
One-half ton of fertilizer carrying four
per cent. of nitrogen (one-third of which
is from nitrate of soda and the other two
thirds from high grade organic natter
8 per cent available phosphoric acid an
Z per cent. of potash soluble in water is
used per acre. One man and pair of
horses will apply this in one hour.
In plowing two men and one pair of
horses will pillow three acres of So trees
each in days time A pair of horses
and one man will harrow six acres day
With the tractor engine and two men we
have narrowed IS acres in one day, doing
far better work than is possible with
horses.
The trees were sprayed three times in
1912 with Iime-sulphur and arsenate OF
| lead. The lime-sulphur used was made
| by the Geneva formula Owing to the
| size of the cooking vessel 20 pounds OF
quick lime, 40 pounds of sulphur and %
gallons of water We're used for each
| batch. The lime was Stacked in the ket-
| tie. the sulphur was made into paste
| with a little of the water and then to-
gether with the remainder of the water
was added to the lime in the kettle This
was boiled for about three-quarters of an
| hour, allowed to settle and the clear am
| per-coiored lime-sulphur solution of a
strength of about 90 Baume was de-
canted To make this % gallons of con-
centrated lime-sulphur takes one man
| about two hours. -Four gallons of this
strong iime-sulphur. solution added to 81
gallons of water makes the dilute lime
sulphur as used in spraying. To this is
aooeo three pounds of arsenate. lead paste
or q pounds of dry arsenate of lead pow
der' One batch of the strong lime-cul-
phur VIII make about 600 gallons Of d.
iute ime-sulphur, The cost OF each 600