kets and sort into two classes; we pick the best from
the trees, and shake the others to the ground. I sometimes sell in the
orchard; I wholesale when I can, but sell more to the buyers at the
railroad station. I make some cider, and feed the balance of the culls
to hogs. Our best markets are the apple buyers at Holton. Have never
shipped any or dried any. I store only for home use, in boxes in my
cellar, and find that Rawle's Janet and Romanite are the best keepers. I
use farm hands at from seventeen dollars to twenty dollars per month.

* * * * *

JOHN GRAVES, Day, Washington county: Have lived in Kansas twenty-one
years. Have an orchard of 6025 trees; 25 of these have been planted
twenty years, 400 seventeen years, 1200 ten years, 400 seven years, 4000
two years. For market I grow Winesap and Ben Davis. For family use I add
Missouri Pippin, Snow, and Early Harvest. Winesap best of all. I prefer
hilltop, as the gophers are bad on the bottom. I prefer a black soil
with lots of gravel and small stones in it. Believe that north and east
slopes are best. I plant two-year-old trees with short bodies,
twenty-five feet apart each way. I cultivate with corn for about ten
years, using the stirring plow and cultivator. I believe windbreaks are
essential, and would use four rows of cherry trees set close together,
or a row of hedge or box-elder, mainly on the south; some on the north.
For protection from rabbits I tie corn-stalks around the trees, and keep
them on for three or four years, winter and summer. I prune some with
the pocket-knife and saw. I do not thin the fruit unless I think the
limbs are going to break. I would use no fertilizer unless the soil is
very poor. Never pasture the orchard. I sprayed one year with London
purple, using a barrel with a pump in it. I could not see that it did
any good, so I let them go. I pick in buckets from a step-ladder. People
come from the west with wagons and take the apples right out of the
orchard, and they don't sort much. I make some culls into cider and let
the rest lay under the trees and rot. The price last year was
seventy-five cents per bushel, and the year before thirty-five cents. I
store a few for winter in thin layers, one above another, in a rack in
the cellar, and am successful. Winesaps keep the best. For picking I use
good careful men at one dollar per day.

* * * * *

GODFREY FINE, Maxson, Osage county