E. P. DIEHL, Olathe, Johnson county: I have lived in Kansas thirty years; have an apple orchard of 700 trees, twenty inches in diameter, twenty-nine years old. For market I prefer York Imperial, Jonathan, Winesap, and Ben Davis, and for family orchard Early Harvest, Maiden's Blush, Winesap, and York Imperial. Have tried and discarded Bellflower, Dominie, Pennsylvania Red Streak, and White Winter Pearmain. I prefer hilltop with a mulatto limestone soil, northeast aspect. Would plant two-year-old trees, forty feet apart. I plant my orchard to corn and potatoes for five years, using a cultivator; cease cropping after six years; plant nothing in a bearing orchard. Windbreaks are essential; I would make them of trees, planted on the south, west, and north. I prune with a knife and saw; think it beneficial. I thin the fruit on my trees the latter part of May, and think it pays. My trees are in mixed plantings. I fertilize my orchard; think it beneficial and that it pays. Pasture my orchard very little, late in the fall, with horses; think it advisable and that it pays. My trees are troubled with canker-worm, tent-caterpillar, bud moth, root aphis, bagworm, flathead borer, roundhead borer, woolly aphis, twig-borer, and oyster-shell bark-louse; and my apples with codling-moth. I spray with London purple, using a force-pump, and think I have reduced the codling-moth. Those insects not affected by spraying I dig out with knife and wire. I hand-pick my apples from a step-ladder into a sack with a hoop in the mouth. Sort into three classes: first, second, and third; pack by hand in three-bushel barrel, mark with stencil, and ship by rail. I sell my apples in the orchard, wholesale and retail. Sell my best ones to apple dealers. Sell my second- and third-grade apples at the stores; make vinegar of the culls. I have dried apples with an American dryer with satisfaction; after dry, pack in barrels; we find a ready market for them and think it pays. I store apples for winter in bulk in a cave and am successful; I find York Imperial and Rawle's Janet keep best. We have to repack stored apples before marketing, losing about twenty per cent. of them. I do not irrigate. I get six cents per pound for dried apples. I employ men at $1.25 per day.