north slope is best. Plant
two-year-old, low-headed trees, in holes large enough to receive all the
roots without crowding, one inch deeper than in the nursery. Plant to
corn until five or six years of age; then nothing. Plow and cultivate
both ways to kill the weeds. I believe windbreaks are a necessity, and
should be made of trees planted two or three rods wide, four feet apart,
on the south side. Wrap the trees with straw or hay to protect from
rabbits and borers. I prune with a saw to thin out where too thick, and
to keep down the watersprouts; it certainly pays. I use stable litter
and old hay in the orchard for fertilizer. Do not think it pays or is
advisable to pasture orchard. I spray when the bloom begins to fall,
three times for codling-moth, with London purple and Paris green, and I
am satisfied I have reduced them. For the borer I use a knife and a
wire. I pick in baskets, and pile in long rows in the orchard. I sort
into two classes, and sell the best in the orchard to men who haul them
west. The culls go for cider. I do not irrigate, and I do not dry or
store any apples. Prices have varied from twenty-five cents to one
dollar per bushel. I use common farm labor at fifteen to eighteen
dollars per month.

* * * * *

J. C. CURRAN, Curran, Harper county. I have lived in Kansas fifteen
years. Have fifty apple trees eleven years old. For commercial orchard I
prefer Ben Davis, Winesap, Missouri Pippin, and York Imperial, and for
family orchard add some summer and fall varieties. Have tried and
discarded Rawle's Janet, on account of slow growth. Bellflower is a fall
apple here; and Jonathan is too small. I prefer bottom land, sandy loam,
subirrigated, water at six feet. I prefer good two-year-old trees, head
twenty-eight inches from the ground, planted in spring, after March
winds. I cultivate my orchard all the time with a disc drawn by four
horses. I plant no crop. Have some weeds and rabbits. Windbreaks are
essential; would make them of mulberries planted not closer than forty
feet to the first row of trees; would buy the mulberry sprouts from the
nursery. I keep the rabbits down with dogs and shot-guns; dig borers
out. I never thin my apples; the wind does it for me. I fertilize my
orchard with barn-yard litter, but think it injurious to the trees. Do
not pasture my orchard. Trees are troubled with canker-worm and
tent-caterpillar, and fruit with curculio. I do not spray. Pick