This brings us to a summary of the cost sheet in growing the average acre of peaches:
| Interest on investment | $20.00 |
| Taxes | 1.00 |
| Depreciation in equipment and interest | 20.00 |
| Tillage | 10.00 |
| Cover-crop seed | 2.50 |
| Fertilizers | 5.00 |
| Pruning and thinning | 6.00 |
| Keeping pests under | 8.00 |
| Superintendence | 30.00 |
| Picking, grading, packing and hauling | 30.00 |
| $132.50 |
Pushing this calculation further, the cost per tree runs at $1.321/2, there being 100 trees to the acre in the average orchard in the State. Peach-growers expect 150 bushels per acre during the bearing time of the peach, and dividing 132.50 by 150 we have 881/3 cents as the average cost, exclusive of the package, per bushel of peaches in New York. In this calculation it is assumed that the peach comes in profitable bearing at five years after setting and that the orchard is on the home stretch in the fifteenth lap, giving ten bearing seasons, at least three of which will be fruitless.
Peach-growers to whom this cost sheet has been submitted say 88 cents is too high a cost for producing a bushel of peaches but asked to consider the several items agree that most of them are too low. No doubt few who figure the cost of production include the item of superintendency which increases the cost for each bushel 20 cents. So, too, the average yield given is considered high. Granting that they may be high, all of the figures are permitted to stand, on the theory that the yield bears a close relationship to the expense of production—increased costs stand for increased yields. In tabulations of this kind much is usually made of the cost of bringing the orchard in bearing. In this calculation the high charge of investment goes to cover the cost of the first five years, the period of incubation, so to speak, and it is certain that this, with the sale of inter-crops, covers all expenditures for the first five years.
DISEASES OF THE PEACH
The peach is attacked by a half-score or more diseases in New York, two of which, yellows and little-peach, have this fruit quite at their mercy, there being no preventive, antidote, nor means of alleviation for either. Two other diseases, brown-rot and leaf-curl, are always present and often bring disaster, their virulency depending on locality, season, weather and variety, but both are amenable to treatment and at most destroy only foliage and fruit, while yellows and little-peach take their toll in trees. The several other diseases to be discussed are either easily controlled or are of minor importance.
Yellows is a malignant disease or condition of the peach, very contagious, usually virulent, of which we know neither cause, origin nor cure. We know only its unmistakable symptoms, its terrible consequences. The history of yellows, the circumstances of its coming and its effects have been given in a foregoing chapter so that we need to discuss now only the symptoms and means of preventing the direct results of the disease.
In its later stages the symptoms are characteristic enough and cannot be confounded with those of any other malady or condition of the tree. The marks of yellows are: (1) Premature ripening of the fruit accompanied by red blotches over the surface and red streaks running through the flesh; (2) premature unfolding of leaf-buds into willowy growths of tips and the production of shoots upon the trunk or main branches with growths developing into bunchy tufts of yellow or reddish foliage; (3) total discoloration of the foliage.
Prematureness in ripening varies from a few days to several weeks; the earlier it occurs, the smaller the fruit. When diseased fruit ripens near the normal season the peaches may be full size, showy to voluptuousness and marked outwardly only by the hectic red of the disease. The taste indicates the disease—in insipid, mawkish or bitter specimens which show the red color and undersize of prematured peaches. During the first season prematured fruit may show only on particular branches or even on a single shoot which may not differ in appearance from other parts of the tree. Prematureness, unaccompanied by other symptoms of yellows, may be due to borers, drought, neglect, girdling or similar causes.
The second symptom is the opening of winter-buds out of season. This usually occurs a year later than the appearance of prematured, red-colored fruits. The buds may push forth shortly after they have formed in mid-summer while the tree-top is still bearing its fruit and foliage or they may delay until the next spring, to appear a few days in advance of normal leafing-time. Very often these buds begin growth in the autumn after healthy leaves have fallen. Such diseased buds may develop on tips of branches, especially water-sprouts, but feeble, sickly shoots due to the disease usually appear in considerable numbers on main limbs and on the trunk, no doubt under the influence of the yellows on old resting buds buried deep in the bark of the wood. Sometimes these yellow shoots are unbranched but oftener they are much branched and frequently but bunchy tufts of foliage, stems slender, leaves pale green, small, narrow and standing out stiffly at nearly right angles to the stems.