llar storage: All know that, after the
perishable and inferior apples are gone, good winter apples bring sure
and large returns. How best to preserve them is a vital question. The
art of keeping apples by the artificial cold-storage process is yet
imperfect and unsatisfactory, and the losses have been so great that,
unless the owner of the plant will take part of the risk, at least to
the extent of his fee, he will find the average grower standing back. To
lose your apples, and then pay fifty cents per barrel to the man whose
ignorance or carelessness may have caused the loss, is a burden too
heavy to be borne. The hillside cave is described elsewhere, and the
orchardist who has such a cave well built, and gives it careful
attention, will save a large portion of the fee, and have his apples
always under his own supervision, besides saving in hauling, and perhaps
railroad freight to and from a distant cold-storage plant. House
cellars, small caves and buried heaps each and all have their advocates,
mostly for family use or among the small growers.

It seems to be determined that the Winesap is the better keeper,
followed closely by the Missouri Pippin and Ben Davis. Of less
marketable varieties, Rawle's Janet and Rambo seem to keep best. The per
cent. of loss, excepting in a few cases, does not seem great considering
the (usually) greatly increased value of the sound apples.

The reports from those who irrigate are not as full as we could wish. It
is claimed that with irrigation every apple becomes a perfect specimen
of its kind; that there are no culls. If this is so, and we hope it is,
what a grand opening for those rightly situated.

Our Lakin correspondent sells his apples at top prices at the tree for
cash, to men who could but do not heed the injunction, "Go thou and do
likewise." Prices, like wages, vary greatly. Apples put on board cars in
a northeastern county at twenty cents per bushel often retail in western
groceries at one dollar per bushel. The railroad and grocer get the
"lion's share."

On the whole, a close study of all that is in this book ought to give an
impetus to the planting of proper varieties, the careful and complete
destruction of insects, the growing, picking, packing and marketing of
more profitable apples, all to the glory of the Kansas grower and
incidentally swelling his bank account. This means better dwellings,
better furniture therein, better food on the tables, better education
for