tail the best, second and third grades; use and sell the
culls. Home is my best market. I do not dry or store any for winter
market. I irrigate, lifting the water twenty feet by an elevator and
horse power from creek. Prices have been from $1 to $1.60 per bushel.
Dried apples, sixteen pounds for one dollar. I employ hands at from
fifteen dollars to eighteen dollars per month.

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F. T. M. DUTCHER, Phillipsburg, Phillips county: I have lived in Kansas
twenty-six years; have an apple orchard of 100 trees from eight to ten
years old. For market I prefer Missouri Pippin, Ben Davis, and Winesap,
and for family orchard Ben Davis and Winesap. I prefer a bottom which
has a sandy soil and a clay subsoil, with a northeast slope. I set
two-year-old trees in listed ditches. I plant my orchard to potatoes as
long as possible; use a five-tooth cultivator; cease cropping when the
trees shade the ground, and plant nothing in a bearing orchard.
Windbreaks are not essential. For rabbits I tie corn-stalks around the
tree, leaving them on the year round. I prune my trees with a knife;
think it beneficial, and that it pays. I thin apples, if necessary, as
soon as established. I fertilize my orchard with stable litter, and
would advise its use on all soils. I never pasture my orchard; do not
think it advisable. My trees are troubled with borers, and my apples
with curculio. I do not spray. I dig borers out. I make only one grade
of my apples, and feed the culls to pigs, and use all the rest at home.
I do not dry any. I irrigate a little; have a pond around the trees.

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D. E. STEVENS, Norton, Norton county: I have resided in the State
eighteen years. Have an apple orchard of 100 trees from ten to fifteen
years old, three to six inches in diameter. My orchard should be
composed of Ben Davis, Missouri Pippin, Pewaukee, Jonathan, Willow Twig,
Maiden's Blush, Snow and two kinds of Russets (and I haven't a Russet in
the orchard!!), Early Harvest, one or two sweets (and I haven't a sweet
in the orchard!), which proves to me that an agent will sell you any
variety you want, and ship what they happen to have. I prefer bottom
land with a loamy soil and a clay subsoil, with a northern slope. I
prefer three-year-old, low-top trees, cut back, set in a furrow made
with a lister and dug out with a spade. I plant my orchard to corn,
using a stirring plow and harrow, and am st