The names, characteristics, qualities, description, etc., of the twenty to thirty varieties that make up an ideal orchard would require a long chapter, if the subject was fully treated. Beginners in tree buying should be cautioned not to let the nurseryman run in half a dozen trees of each kind for the family orchard on them. Two trees of a kind are plenty, particularly as the surplus of the family orchard commonly goes to waste. The names should be carefully registered, so there will be no wondering what an apple is when it begins to bear. You can't keep company satisfactorily with an apple that you don't know the name of, any better than you can an unknown man.
The best place to keep these family apples is in a dugout, in the side of a bank if possible, at all events good and deep, with the door at the north, and a good blow-hole in the south end. I don't know much about soils or location. I found myself in possession of some Kaw river timbered hills, clay soil carrying some sand; not good for much else; so I planted them--tops, sides, and draws--with apple trees, which have done well on the tops of the hills, sides of the hills, and in the valleys between the hills. Am inclined to suspect there is a great deal of gammon written about "slope" and "expanse" for orchards. My conclusion is that that is a good slope which you happen to have. Trees growing in the Kaw bottoms themselves, I observe, thrive and bear. The only cultivation I have ever given trees has been such as they got by being component parts of a corn-field, except that I have mainly given the tree rows extra cultivation, keeping them clean of grass and weeds. My orchards are now seeded to clover; clover is not valuable, for its own sake, among trees, but the trees thrive with it. Its greatest use, so far as I can see, is to make you mow the orchard where it is twice during the season. I prefer to stop cultivation in orchards when they are six years old.
I have no knowledge of windbreaks, but I have had a great deal of "mechanical destruction" done by borers and rabbits. Both these pests are good "mechanics" in their way and willing to work. I have the borers hunted spring and fall. Small trees I have protected from rabbits by stalks, paper, or veneering. Rabbits are not hard to head off, but they won't let a case go by default. Some people depend upon traps, dogs, guns, poison, cats, washes, wagon grease and liver to keep the rabbits away. I have known all of these to fail, but I have never known a tree well tied up with corn-stalks to suffer from "mechanical destruction" via the rabbit route, unless the string broke. There is no law against having a good string. The only pruning I have ever done has been to take out water sprouts. I don't know whether it paid or not. But I like the looks of a tree better without the pompadour effect a top full of sprouts gives it. Never have thinned apples; orchards here are self-thinners. By picking time the fruit is fully half on the ground and commonly not too much on the trees. Have never used manure or any fertilizer on apple trees. I never pastured an orchard but once. One trial cured me. I judge that one trial is nearly always enough. It is not advisable to pasture orchards, not even with hogs. The greatest pest we have is the apple worm--son, I am told, of the codling-moth. Have made no effort to check it by spraying, or otherwise.