ring with swine and
poultry. I think it advisable and that it pays, if too many are not put
in.

My trees are troubled with canker-worm, tent-caterpillar, root aphis,
twig-borer, fall web-worm, and leaf-roller. I spray just after the
leaves start and three times afterwards, a week or ten days apart, using
London purple and lime water for the foliage and fruit-eating insects;
think I have reduced the codling-moth materially. I spray early for
canker-worm, and just after the blossoms drop for codling-moth and
curculio. I hand-pick my apples from a step-ladder, in a sack hung over
the shoulder; sort into three classes--first, smooth and not specked;
second, rough and specked; third, partly rotten, for vinegar. I sort
into baskets from a table which has a rim around the edge. I pack my
first-grade apples in barrels pressed full, then headed, marked with a
stencil, and hauled to market on a wagon. I wholesale my best apples to
home buyers, and also fill orders from a distance; sell my second- and
third-grade apples to home buyers, and make into sweet cider; make
vinegar of culls and feed them to hogs. My best market is at home; have
tried distant markets; did not pay. Do not dry any. Am fairly successful
in storing apples in barrels, boxes and shallow bins in a cellar; find
Rawle's Janet, Ben Davis and Jonathan keep best. Weather is too warm in
the fall in this latitude to keep apples successfully. I have to repack
stored apples two or three times, losing from one-third to three-fourths
of them; it varies with the season and time of picking. I do not
irrigate. Prices have been from twenty-five cents to one dollar per
bushel. I employ the best help there is to be had, at from 75 cents to
$1.25 per day.

* * * * *

JOHN HART, Sedan, Chautauqua county: I have lived in Kansas twenty-seven
years, and have an apple orchard of 400 trees, ten years planted. I
prefer for commercial orchard Ben Davis, and for family orchard Early
Harvest, Maiden's Blush, Winesap, Ben Davis, and Arkansas Black. I
prefer sandy bottom land, and plant my trees in furrows. I cultivate my
orchard to corn as long as it is possible to grow anything, but plant
nothing in a bearing orchard. Windbreaks are beneficial. I would make
them of Osage orange or wild goose plums. I prune with a saw, to thin
out the centers and keep off suckers. I think it beneficial. I fertilize
my orchard with barn-yard litter. I think it beneficial, a