Of all packages tried, we prefer and use the three-bushel barrel, 17-1/8 inch head and 28-1/2 inch stave. When one head is removed, the barrel is turned over and a rap with the hand removes all trash. If we are packing a fine grade of fruit, we put a piece of white paper, cut a little less than the diameter of the barrel, in before facing. Barrels are double-faced or plated. We are careful to have the barrels rocked or shaken often while being filled. The name of variety and our trade-mark is put on the barrel with stencil or rubber stamp. No. 1's and 2's are hauled to shipping station in barrels; culls in bulk in ordinary farm wagon. We have never sold our crop in the orchard; always preferred to have it picked and packed under our own supervision. Our apples have been sold in car lots. Firsts and seconds have gone to wholesale dealers. Culls we have evaporated, sold to men who evaporate, to cider-mills, and to dealers who handle bulk apples.
For drying, we use the New York hop kiln, Rival No. 2 parers, and upright bleachers, all of which have been reasonably satisfactory. We believe them the best we can get, considering the class of evaporated fruit in demand. White stock is best handled in fifty-pound boxes; chops, peelings and cores in sacks. We always found a ready market for dried fruit. Some years it paid well.
We have wintered only in cold-storage plants, always in barrels, and it has been profitable. Ben Davis and Winesap have kept best, with Missouri Pippin a close second. Jonathan keeps well under proper conditions. If kept as late as March, it is generally necessary to repack, but not always. Our greatest loss has been on Jonathan, which in some instances, when kept late in the season, has reached ten per cent.
We have never irrigated or watered any part of our orchards.
Prices have ranged as follows with us: For No. 1, from $1.50 to $4; and No. 2, 90 cents to $2 per barrel. Culls have brought from 25 cents to 60 cents per 100 pounds; evaporated apples from 4 to 13 cents per pound; all these free on board.
A. E. HOUGHTON, Weltbote, Washington county: I have lived in Kansas twenty-nine years; have 100 apple trees, fifteen years old, twelve inches in diameter. For commercial and family orchards, I prefer Ben Davis, Winesap, Rawle's Janet, Huntman's Favorite, Grimes's Golden Pippin, Rambo, and Jonathan. Have tried and discarded Dominie, Roman Stem, and Bellflower; the latter on account of shy bearing. Think bottom land, black, rich loam, and north aspect, the best. I prefer three-year-old, short, stout-bodied trees--the shorter the better--with limbs as low as they will grow. I cultivate my orchard to corn, potatoes or vines as long as it is possible to do the work. I use a plow, cultivator, and one-horse double-shovel plow. I cease cropping when they begin to bear, and plant to clover. I consider windbreaks essential; would not grow an orchard without one, and would use Osage orange, ash, Russian mulberry, or box-elder, planted in several rows on south and west.