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H. L. FERRIS, Osage City, Osage county: A citizen of Kansas for
twenty-one years. Have an orchard of 4000 apple trees--200 twenty years,
1800 seventeen years, 2000 sixteen years planted. Prefer, for commercial
purposes, Ben Davis, Winesap, and Missouri Pippin; for family orchard:
Winesap, Missouri Pippin, Jonathan, Romanite, and Maiden Blush; have
discarded Rawle's Janet. Prefer good upland corn ground, with sand or
gravel subsoil, north and east slope. I plow deep, and plant large
two-year-old trees, shallow, and mound up; shorten roots and branches.
Cultivate with plow and harrow from youth to old age. Grow corn in young
orchard up to six years, afterward nothing. Prefer a windbreak on south,
west, and north, of box-elders, Osage orange, or peach. Rub liver on
trees to repel rabbits, and use a knife for borers. To prune with a
little saw makes the trees grow faster, and the apples grow larger, and
it pays. Use stable and barn-yard litter to fertilize with, and it
pays. Would not allow live stock to run in orchard. Am troubled with
roundheaded borers and codling-moth. Spray in May and June for bitter
rot and fungous diseases. Fight borers with a five-eighths chisel, a
wire, and coal-tar. Pick from step-ladders into tin pails hung to branch
with wire hook; haul in boxes on spring wagon to packing place. Sort on
tables into three grades--first, second, and cider apples; pack into
eleven- or twelve-peck barrels. Sell in all ways; have sold in orchard.
Ship the best; best market in Texas. Send six-inch apples to where they
are scarce; culls I sell cheaply at home, evaporate some, and make
vinegar. Use a Zimmerman evaporator and Eureka parers. Sell dried fruit
at retail, have shipped some; do not think it pays, do not find a ready
market. Store for winter use in boxes in cellar successfully; find
Romanite and Winesap keep best; lose about one-fourth. Have irrigated
some from a pond with an eight-inch hose and steam-power pump. Average
price has been fifty cents per bushel for apples and five cents a pound
for dried apples. Use male help gathering, and female help at dryer,
paying eight to ten cents per hour.

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A. OBERNDORF, Centralia, Nemaha county: Have lived in Kansas nineteen
years. Have an apple orchard of 4200 trees, from three to twenty years
planted. I am told Ben Davis and Gano are the best apples for commercial
purposes; for family use I would prefer Early Harvest, R