ng. They should be well
sorted, packed in tight barrels, and headed up to exclude the light and
air. They will keep longer if each apple is wrapped with paper. The
temperature of your cave or cellar should be reduced as much as possible
by throwing the doors open at night and closing them through the day. A
gradual reduction and a regular temperature is better than a sudden
change. Apples should not be hauled about in the hot sun before storing
them away, neither should they be placed in cold storage at once. The
change is too sudden. It is the same in taking them out of cold storage.
It should not be done at once. A storing room for this purpose should be
provided in every cold-storage plant. I do not have to repack stored
apples if they are sold early, but if not until late we have to repack.
The loss depends upon the variety. I have tried irrigation on a small
scale, but do not irrigate now. Prices have been from fifty cents to two
dollars per barrel. I employ men that are capable of packing apples,
paying from five to ten cents per hour. We seldom hear anything about
fall planting, as if it was a settled fact that the spring was the best
or the only time it could be done successfully.

All of our trees for the last thirty-eight years have been transplanted
in the fall, excepting the last three years they were set out in the
spring. The difference is decidedly in favor of fall planting; they
start in growth earlier and make a much stronger growth the first
season, and there is a gain of nearly a year in size over those planted
in the spring, and they certainly have lived better. Why should they not
do better? We have more time and less hurry to do the work well, the
ground is in better condition, the trees have more time to callus and
become firmly established. It is often too wet to take the trees up and
transplant them early, and late setting is not advisable. The distance
trees should be set apart is a more important matter than is generally
supposed. Very few ever think how large a tree will grow and the space
it will occupy. Almost every thrifty variety will grow and spread, and
require a foot of space each year; that would be ten feet in ten years
and forty feet in forty years; in other words, the trees will meet in
forty years if set forty feet apart. This holds good in Kansas;
consequently, forty feet apart is too close to plant trees if we expect
an orchard to last that long. Apple trees will bear and be prof