have lived in Kansas ten years.
I have 1250 apple trees, eight years planted, as fine as they can be. My
market varieties are: Winesap, Missouri Pippin, Rawle's Janet, and Ben
Davis, and for family I added Maiden's Blush, Red Astrachan, and Sweet
June. I prefer clay soil, on hilltop; any slope is good. Plant trees in
good condition and fine appearance, on ground plowed deep and disced
just as deeply. I cultivate very often with five-tooth cultivator, and
never quit. Every third year I plow with a one-horse diamond plow. I
raised melons for the first three years; after that nothing. I have no
use for windbreaks. I tie with corn-stalks, to protect against rabbits.
I prune very little, to form the top, with knife and saw; keep
straggling branches out. I use very little fertilizer; only on thin
soil. I never pasture the orchard. Have some twig-borers and
leaf-crumplers. I have never sprayed yet; it may soon be necessary. I
have kept my trees tied up with corn-stalks for six years; the bodies
are healthy; no sun-scald and no borers. My best market is at home. I
have stored some for winter, in barrels in a cave, and find that the
Winesap, Missouri Pippin, and Rawle's Janet keep best, the latter
keeping until July. I have been able to sell in the spring at fifty
cents per peck.
* * * * *
JOHN M. C. KROENLIN, Lincoln, Lincoln county: I have resided in Kansas
twenty-one years. Have an apple orchard of 178 trees, from four to
fourteen years old, three to twelve inches in diameter. For market I
prefer Winesap and Missouri Pippin, and for family use Missouri Pippin,
Cooper's Early White, and Winesap. I prefer bottom land, with a black
loam soil and sandy subsoil; I believe a level location best. For
planting I prefer two-year-old trees, set in holes dug three feet square
and one and one-half feet deep; throw out all soil and use good surface
soil; never apply water to the roots. I cultivate my orchard until the
trees are seven years old, using a disc, and then a harrow to level the
ground, and plant no crop. Windbreaks are essential; would make them of
Russian mulberries, on south and west sides. I have cottonwood
windbreaks on the east and north of my orchard; those on the east
protect the trees from the morning sun, thereby lessening the danger
when there is frost on the buds, and those on the north I keep trimmed
high, so as to admit of a free circulation of air, which is a protection
against f
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