EDWIN TAYLOR, Delaware township, Wyandotte county: I have lived in Kansas twenty-seven years. Have about 5000 apple trees aged from eight to twelve years. The best varieties of apples for commercial orchards are not many. No one variety could be named which would be best for all locations or conditions. The Ben Davis is most largely planted in the West. Jonathan, Missouri Pippin, Willow Twig, Park's Keeper, are all valuable sorts. There are others. A family orchard is the most important orchard a farmer plants. It should contain a small number of trees and a large number of varieties. Two of a kind are a plenty. There should be at least twenty kinds. That will allow for a new variety to ripen in its season every two weeks or less in summer and fall and every three weeks during the winter. They should begin with the earliest and finish with the very longest keeper. These varieties will overlap, so that the farmer will almost always have two sorts to choose from. There should be sweet apples among them--particularly winter sweets. The names, characteristics, qualities, description, etc., of the twenty to thirty varieties that make up an ideal orchard would require a long chapter, if the subject was fully treated. Beginners in tree buying should be cautioned not to let the nurseryman run in half a dozen trees of each kind for the family orchard on them. Two trees of a kind are plenty, particularly as the surplus of the family orchard commonly goes to waste. The names should be carefully registered, so there will be no wondering what an apple is when it begins to bear. You can't keep company satisfactorily with an apple that you don't know the name of, any better than you can an unknown man.