W. D. KERN, Baldwin, Douglas county: I have resided in Kansas thirty-nine years. Have an apple orchard of 775 trees four years old. For market I prefer Missouri Pippin, Ben Davis, and Willow Twig, and for family orchard Yellow Transparent, Maiden's Blush, and Jonathan. I prefer a loose, porous subsoil on a north slope. I prefer one- or two-year-old trees, set twenty-two feet apart north and south and thirty-three feet east and west. I plant my orchard to corn, potatoes, and clover, and keep up the cultivation until they are bearing well, using a diamond plow and one-horse cultivator. I never cease cropping. Windbreaks are not essential, but if they were I should make them of four or five rows of maple or some quick-growing trees, on the south and west sides of the orchard. For rabbits I use wooden tree wrappers, and dig the borers out. I prune to give the tree shape and let in the sun; I think it pays, as it keeps the tree from overbearing. I do not thin the fruit while on the trees, but think it would pay. I fertilize my orchard with barn-yard litter, and would advise it on all soils when it needs it. I pasture my orchard with hogs; I think it advisable, and that it pays. My trees are troubled with canker-worms, tent-caterpillars, borers, tree-hoppers, and leaf-rollers, and my apples with codling-moth and curculio. I do not spray. I hand-pick my apples into buckets and sacks from step-ladders. I sell my apples in the orchard at wholesale. I sell the best to shippers, and the second and third grades the best way I can. I sell or feed the culls to the stock. Never tried distant markets. I do not dry any. Some years I am successful in storing apples in barrels and boxes in a cellar. Winesap and Missouri Pippin keep best. I never tried artificial cold storage. I have to repack stored apples before marketing, losing about one-fourth of them. I do not irrigate. Prices have been from sixty cents to one dollar per eleven-peck barrel. I employ men at ten cents per hour.
JAMES SHARP, Morris county: Have been in Kansas twenty-eight years. Have an orchard in Morris county of 8000 trees, planted from two to thirteen years. I grow for market Ben Davis, Missouri Pippin, Jonathan, and York Imperial; would add for family Early Harvest, Maiden's Blush, and Winesap. Have tried and discarded Yellow Bellflower, Lawver, Willow Twig, and Smith's Cider; the former is barren, the others blight. I prefer second bottom with northeast slope; soil loose, black loam, with red clay subsoil. I plant in furrows each way, 16×30 feet, running a subsoiler in the furrows, and use straight, smooth, two-year-old trees. Have tried root grafts, but they need nursery care at first. I cultivate at all ages, while young with plow, and old orchard with reversible disc. I grow corn in young orchard, and after five or six years keep the ground bare with the disc. I think windbreaks essential, and use Osage orange, elm, ash, Austrian pine, and cedars. Catch the rabbits; and cultivate well as a protection from borers. Do not prune much; take out a little brush if necessary to more readily reach the fruit. Never have thinned apples. Have never fertilized, and am decidedly opposed to pasturing orchards with any kind of stock. Am troubled with canker-worm, tent-caterpillar, flathead borer, woolly aphis, twig-borer, fall web-worm, leaf-roller, leaf-crumbler, and codling-moth. Spray regularly with London purple; cannot say it has reduced the codling-moth any; for borers I keep my trees thrifty by constant cultivation. We pick in candy pails, but find it bruises the fruit too much. I sort by hand in three classes, commercial size Nos. 1 and 2, and culls. I pack in three-bushel barrels, stenciled with name of variety and grower, and ship by freight. Sell any way I can; have never sold in the orchard; sell culls for apple-butter, and make some cider; have marketed at good prices at Pueblo, Colo.; have never dried any for market. I store some for winter in boxes, barrels and in bulk in a cellar, and find that Ben Davis and Missouri Pippin keep best. I usually have to sort over those kept through, and lose perhaps one-fifth. Have never irrigated. My average returns are about fifty cents per bushel. For help I use men at one dollar per day.