A. CHANDLER, Argentine, Wyandotte county. Have lived in the state twenty-two years; have an apple orchard of 400 trees from one to nine years old. For market I prefer Jonathan, Winesap, Missouri Pippin, Ben Davis, and York Imperial; and for family orchard Huntsman's Favorite, Maiden's Blush, and Jonathan. Have tried and discarded Grimes's Golden Pippin and Smith's Cider on account of blight. I prefer hilltop, with a clay soil and a light subsoil, and an east slope, as it will get the morning sun and no southwest winds. I prefer two-year-old trees five to six feet high, well branched, set twenty-eight by thirty feet; I also have some twenty by thirty feet. I plant my orchard to corn, potatoes, tomatoes and cabbage for seven years, using a cultivator and harrow (I like the Acme and spading harrow). Cease cropping after seven years; plant bearing orchard to blackberries and raspberries, but this is not advisable; clover or cow-peas are better. Windbreaks are essential on the prairie; would make them of a double row of Osage orange or evergreens, on the south and west. For rabbits I wrap the trees with paper or veneering, and for borers I mound the tree up. I prune a little with my pocket-knife to remove dead and crossed limbs; it does not pay to saw and chop. I thin my fruit by hand when the crop is heavy, not later than July 15. My trees are in mixed plantings. I fertilize my orchard with ashes and bone-meal; both are beneficial, but not necessary in good potash soils.
I pasture my orchard with six-months-old pigs--think it advisable in an orchard that is over four years old. My trees are troubled with canker-worms, round- and flathead borers and tent-caterpillar, and my trees with codling-moth, curculio, and gouger. I spray with London purple and Paris green, using a hand pump. For borers I wash the trees with whale-oil soap, carbolic acid, and sulphur, and then mound the trees up. I pick my apples in baskets, from a ladder wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, and leave the apples in the orchard four to six weeks, then sort into three classes, from a padded table 5×12 feet, sloping; pack into twelve-peck barrels, mark with variety, and haul to market on a spring wagon. Sometimes I sell apples in the orchard at retail; pack my best apples in one-peck baskets for stand trade, my second grade in barrels. Feed the culls to the hogs; cider does not pay. My best market is Kansas City. Have tried distant markets, but it did not pay--too great freight and commission charges. I am successful in storing apples in barrels in an earth cave five feet deep, earth sides and roof; keep it open when not freezing; apples can be stored in bulk by leaving a space of six inches at the sides and bottom. Jonathan and Gano keep best. I have tried artificial cold storage and lost fifteen per cent. of my apples. I found it too expensive and unreliable. I have to repack the stored apples before marketing, and lose from fifteen to forty per cent. of them. I do not irrigate. Prices have been: Jonathan, $3 to $5 per barrel; Ben Davis, $2.25 to $3 per barrel. I employ men mostly, at from $1 to $1.25 per day.