ees. I plant corn or oats in a young orchard. Windbreaks are
essential; would make them of maples or willows and cultivate the same
as a crop. I prune to thin the tops, and think it beneficial. I thin the
fruit when small, if the trees are overloaded. Can see no difference
whether the trees are planted in blocks of one kind, or mixed up. I
fertilize my orchard, but not close to the trees; would not advise it on
bottom land. I pasture my orchard with calves and hogs, but it is not
advisable; it does not pay.

I do not spray. I am experimenting with my trees; I make a hole two
inches deep, one-fourth inch in diameter, put in medicine and plug up
tight with grafting wax over it. It is claimed to kill all the insects
on the tree for four or five years to come. I can tell the results this
fall. It costs $10 to try it. [Hear! hear!] My neighbors spray their
trees when in blossom, and say it pays. I pick my apples by hand, sort
into two classes, and pack in barrels, filled full, and marked with
consignee's name and hauled to shipping place on wagon. I never sell
apples in the orchard, because they [the pickers] ruin the trees. I
wholesale my best, second and third grade apples to the one offering the
most for them. I feed the culls to hogs. Hiawatha is my best market. I
never tried distant markets; it would not pay, unless in car-load lots.
I dry apples, put them in sacks and hang in a dry place, and find a
ready market for them; it pays. Am successful in storing apples in
boxes--made of lath an inch apart--in an arched cave. I find Ben Davis
and Rawle's Janet keep best. I have to repack stored apples before
marketing, losing about one-tenth of them. I do not irrigate. Prices
have been about one dollar per barrel. I pay eighteen to twenty dollars
per month and board for help.

* * * * *

ISAAC M. TAYLOR, Richmond, Franklin county: I have lived in Kansas
thirty years; have about fifty apple trees eight years old, ten feet
high. For market I prefer Jonathan and Ben Davis; for a family orchard,
Romanstem, Gilpin, Rawle's Janet, Winesap, and Hubbardston's Nonesuch.
Have tried and discarded McAfee Nonesuch, Belleflower, and Missouri
Pippin. I prefer a gentle east slope at the bottom of a hill, with a
deep sandy loam or four feet of red land on lime rock. I prefer
two-year-old trees set thirty by thirty feet apart, in holes dug
eighteen inches deep, and filled one-third full of surface soil. I
culti