o burn torches in the
orchard at night. Another way is to hang a lantern over a tub of water
that has a little coal-oil in it; this will kill a great many insects.

I hand-pick my fruit into sacks slung over the shoulder; I use a
step-ladder for those I cannot reach. I sell apples in orchard; also
retail; sell best ones to best customers; I dry second and third grades;
of culls I make cider and vinegar and feed to pigs. My best market is at
home. I dry some apples; use a Victor evaporator, and one that I made;
after drying we heat in an oven, and put in double paper bags, and find
a ready market; but it does not pay. I store apples in five-bushel
boxes, in a tunnel-like cellar, dug in solid sand-rock; it is fifty feet
long, five feet wide, and six and one-half feet deep, with rooms on each
side; it is perfectly dry and the temperature even, but it is too warm
for winter; I find it is excellent for summer and fall apples. Those
that keep best are Rawle's Janet and Missouri Pippin. We have to repack
stored apples before marketing; I do not lose many. I use or sell as
soon as fit. I irrigate my orchard from a small creek fed by springs. I
have two large dams, with ditches running along the hillside, with gates
to let the water into the ditches; from the main ditch I have laterals,
also provided with gates; the surplus and seepage goes back into the
creek below the main dam; the creek below the dam has small dams in it
to hold the seepage water at the desired height--which serves for
subirrigation, the best irrigation in the world. The water should not
stand nearer than five feet of the surface for apples. I run the water
between the rows in wide, shallow ditches, any time from March to
September. It is not necessary to have a creek to irrigate an orchard. A
good, big ditch along the hillside above the orchard will catch enough
melted snow and rain to pay for its construction; this should run into a
reservoir. Prices have been from seventy-five cents to one dollar, and
dried apples from five to twelve and one-half cents per pound.

* * * * *

PETER NOON, Vesper, Lincoln county: I have lived in Kansas thirty years.
Have forty apple trees eleven years old, eight to ten inches in
diameter, twelve to fifteen feet high. I prefer for all purposes Winesap
and Ben Davis. I prefer bottom land with a black soil and sandy subsoil.
I plant young trees in rows twenty-five feet each way. I cultivate my
or