The Apple: The Kansas Apple, the Big Red Apple; the Luscious, Red-Cheeked First Love of the Farmer's Boy; the Healthful, Hearty Heart of the Darling Dumpling. What It Is; How to Grow It; Its Commercial and Economic Importance; How to Utilize It.
Science
The Apple: The Kansas Apple, the Big Red Apple; the Luscious, Red-Cheeked First Love of the Farmer's Boy; the Healthful, Hearty Heart of the Darling Dumpling. What It Is; How to Grow It; Its Commercial and Economic Importance; How to Utilize It.
Apples
Sells his best in car lots at
wholesale, the culls to peddlers. Generally markets at Kansas City. Has
tried distant markets and made it pay. Never dried any. Stores for
winter in barrels in cold store; not always satisfactory; thinks the
cold-storage business not yet fully understood; says Ben Davis and
Jonathan keep best. Sometimes repacks, at a loss of one-tenth to
one-sixth. Does not irrigate. Prices have ranged from two to five
dollars per barrel. Paid last year one dollar per day to men who could
do a good day's work.
* * * * *
E. M. GRAY, Perry, Jefferson county: I have lived in Kansas forty years;
my orchard of twenty acres has been planted twenty years. For market, I
prefer Ben Davis and Jonathan on poor land; and Missouri Pippin and
Winesap on rich land. For family orchard, Early Harvest, Red June,
Winesap, Grimes's Golden Pippin, Missouri Pippin, and Huntsman's
Favorite. Have tried and discarded Grimes's Golden Pippin, Lawver,
Winesap, Missouri Pippin, and Huntsman's Favorite; they are not
profitable, are too small when grown on poor land. I prefer yellow clay
bottom, with an east, south or northern aspect. I prefer large, healthy,
two-year-old trees, planted with a lister, subsoil plow, and spade. I
cultivate my orchard to corn, small fruit, potatoes and nursery stock
seven years, with a cutaway disc harrow, and cease cropping after eight
years; I plant nothing in a bearing orchard. Windbreaks are essential;
would make them of Russian mulberry, Osage orange, or cedars, by
planting two rows of them on the south and west sides of the orchard.
For rabbits I keep a shot-gun and dogs. I do not prune; don't think it
beneficial. I do not thin my apples while on the tree, but think it
would pay. My trees are in mixed plantings; my Ben Davis are fuller and
redder planted close by Jonathan and Winesap. I do not fertilize my
orchard, but think it would be beneficial, and would advise its use on
all exhausted soils in old orchards. Do not pasture my orchard; would
not advise it, don't think it would pay. My trees are troubled with
flathead borers, and my apples with curculio. I do not spray. I dig
borers out with a knife.
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