es, set thirty
feet each way. I plant to corn for four years, then cease cropping, and
seed to clover. I have a windbreak on the south side made of Osage
orange, to keep the hot winds off. I prune lightly to thin out some of
the middle branches; I think it pays. I do not thin my fruit. I
fertilize my orchard with stable litter, and plow it under. I think it
beneficial, and would advise its use on all soils. I sow my orchard to
oats, and pasture with hogs with rings in their noses; they live on the
oats, and don't hurt the trees, but with the help of the chickens they
keep the canker-worms off. My trees are troubled with round- and
flathead borers. I do not spray. I hand-pick my apples; sort into two
classes--shipping and cider. I sell my apples in the home market; sell
second and third grades to the cider-mills. Never tried distant markets.
I do not dry any. I am successful in storing apples in bulk in a cellar;
find Winesap to keep best. Prices have been from fifty to sixty cents
per bushel. I employ young men at seventeen dollars per month.

* * * * *

J. C. BECKLEY, Spring Hill, Johnson county: I have lived in the state
thirty years; have an apple orchard of 130 trees, twenty-eight years old
and large for their age. For a commercial orchard I prefer Ben Davis,
Jonathan, and Missouri Pippin; and for family use Early Harvest,
Maiden's Blush, Jonathan, and Winesap. I have tried and discarded
Smith's Cider, Talman (Sweet), Rambo, Fameuse, Willow Twig, White Winter
Pearmain, Roman Stem, Dominie, Fallawater, Wagener, Baldwin, and White
Pippin, because they mature too soon, fall off and rot long before it is
time to pick them. I prefer hilltop with a dark mulatto soil and a clay
subsoil, with a western aspect. I prefer two-year-old trees, with plenty
of fibrous roots, and a well-developed top, set forty by forty feet. I
cultivate my orchard till it is six or seven years old with a common
plow and harrow. In a young orchard I plant potatoes, corn, pumpkins,
melons, and garden-truck; I cease cropping after eight or nine years,
and seed bearing orchard to clover. Windbreaks are not essential, unless
on the south and north sides; would make them of cedar or evergreens. I
would not make a windbreak at all. For rabbits I wrap the trees. When
hunting borers I take knife and chisel and pare all gum and dirt off of
the roots; then I cut wherever I see signs of a borer until I get him,
and if he has go