hat the
culture of apples is very profitable. From twenty adjoining farms in
one neighborhood in western New York, the report gave an average
annual return of $85 per acre at the orchard, covering a period of
five years. Another report gave an average of $110 annual income per
acre for three years, and these results were obtained where only
ordinary care was given to the orchard. But note this.--
One orchard, where the trees had been well sprayed to protect the
fruit from insect injuries, and the soil well cultivated and
properly fertilized, gave a return in one year of $700 per acre, and
for three years an average income of $400 per acre.
One man bought a farm of 100 acres in Central New York with a
much-neglected orchard upon it of 30 acres, paying $5000 for the
whole. He cultivated the orchard, pruned and sprayed the trees
thoroughly, and in seven months from the time he purchased the farm,
sold the apple crop from it for $6000 cash.
"Peanuts: Culture and Uses," by R. B. Handy in Farmers' Bulletin No.
25 of the United States Department of Agriculture says:
"According to the Census the average yield of peanuts in the United
States was 17.6 bushels per acre, the average in Virginia being
about 20, and in Tennessee 32 bushels per acre. This appears to be a
low average, especially as official and semiofficial figures give 50
to 60 bushels as an average crop, and 100 bushels is not an uncommon
yield. Fair peanut land properly manured and treated to intelligent
rotation of crops should produce in an ordinary season a yield of 50
bushels to the acre and from 1 to 2 tons of excellent hay. (Of
course better land with more liberal treatment and a favorable
season will produce heavier crops, the reverse being true of lands
which have been frequently planted with peanuts without either
manuring or rotation of crops.) Besides the amount of peanuts
gathered, there are always large quantities left in the ground which
have escaped the gathering, and on these the planter turns his herd
of hogs, so that there is no waste of any part of the plant."
Tobacco is a paying crop if the soil is just right. Two thousand
pounds per acre can be raised on favorable sites. Connecticut
tobacco brings, in ordinary times, from twenty to thirty cents a
pound; from four to over six hundred dollars being the possible
return.
Some Connecticut soils raise Sumatra tobacco equal to the imported
crop that sells in this country at fancy prices.
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