Question

At the beginning of the season, MacDonald had to remove 555 orange trees from his farm. Each of the remaining trees produced 210 oranges for a total harvest of 41790 oranges. Write an equation to determine the initial number of orange trees (t) on MacDonald's farm.

Answer 1

Initial number of trees were 204.

Explanation:

555 must be a typo error. The question will not produce correct answer. I worked out with 55 but the answer is wrong. So, the number is 5.

Lets say MacDonald removed 5 orange trees from his farm.

Let t be the initial number of trees

After removing 5 trees, the remaining left are t-5 trees

As given - Each of the remaining trees produced 210 oranges for a total harvest of 41790 oranges. This means

`(t-5)210= 41790`

Solving for t:

`210t-1050=41790`

`210t=41790+1050`

`210t=42840`

t = 204

So, initial number of trees were 204.

We can check this :
`204-5=199`

`199*210=41790`

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Working with 55 we get the wrong answer:

`(t-55)210=41790`

`210t-11550=41790`

`210t=30240`

t = 144

We can check this :
`144-5=139`

`139*210=29190` (wrong)