J. C. ROSS, Havana, Montgomery county: Have lived in Kansas twenty-seven years; have an orchard of 100 apple trees twenty-three years old. I prefer for all purposes Ben Davis, Missouri Pippin, and Winesap. Have tried and discarded Rawle's Janet and Romanite. I prefer low land at foot of hills, with deep loam subsoil and a medium slope. I set my trees twenty feet apart. I cultivate in oats and corn up to bearing with common twelve-inch stirring plow. Windbreaks are essential on north; would make them of Osage orange planted in rows. Rabbits are hard to contend with; for borers I use a solution of slaked lime. I prune with a saw; do not think it very beneficial, as the rain gets in, and the wood decays. I never thin apples. My trees are in mixed varieties. I mulch my trees with straw, and think it beneficial. I pasture with calves and hogs; do not think it advisable; it does not pay. Am somewhat troubled with insects; I spray with a solution of coal-oil, using a small pump; think I have reduced the codling-moth. For borers I dissolve lime to a paste in water, and apply to the roots with a scrub broom. I pick my fruit from ladders. I sort into three classes: first, second, and third. I use common barrels to pack the fruit in; mark, and send by freight to near-by markets. I wholesale sometimes, and sometimes sell in orchard; market my best apples at near-by towns; I make cider and vinegar of culls. I dry some fruit; use a large pan filled with hot water; then put in sacks and boxes. I find a ready market; think it pays. I store some apples in a cellar in large, open boxes, and in bulk. Some rot; those that keep best are Winesap, Rawle's Janet, and Romanite. We have to sort stored apples before marketing them; we lose from one-fourth to one-third of them. I do not irrigate. Prices have been from fifty cents to one dollar per bushel. I use any kind of help I can get, and pay seventy-five cents per day. * * * * *