44 State Horticultural Society. 



unusual, and we frequently had to show the contents, but we soon had 

 the trade of the town, and still have some of our old customers. They 

 buy Kingsbury apples because we make the brand good. 



/Mr. Briggs — How do you fill a barrel and have it properly packed? 



Mr. Kingsbury — Shake the barrel at different intervals during the 

 filling, and fill to a little above the chine. Shake it three or four times 

 to do it well. 



Mr. Barnes — A man can soon learn how a barrel feels when the 

 fruit is settled. The right kind of a shake settles the fruit easily. For 

 picking, baskets are out of date in Kansas ; we used the sacks. The idea 

 is speed, and none of the fruit should be put on the ground. The sack has 

 a bottom that is hooked up. The picker takes his full sack to the box in 

 the wagon, unhooks the bottom and gently draws out the sack, letting 

 the apples out into the box. The fruit is then taken to the packing- 

 house in the wagon, the men slide the boxes, from the wagon to a table 

 of the same height, and when a packer is ready he slides the box onto 

 the packing table, and there is no setting down and jarring of the fruit. 



The fruit is emptied carefully from the box onto a sloping table and 

 sorted, and let into the barrel by an apron at the end of the table. 



T. H. Todd — We find it best to pack in the orchard. We pick in 

 four rows at a time, and carry the apples in baskets lined with sacking, 

 to the culling table in the center. We have men to reach the baskets 

 from the pickers and pour the fruit onto the table. We use an apron 

 at the end of the table, and when it is full it can be let down into the 

 barrel wthout bruising at all. When the barrel is nearly full pull the 

 apron aside and finish it. Shake three or four times, owing to the shape 

 and size. This is the best and fastest way we have found. My trees 

 are too close to haul between the rows. Many of our crops are sold to 

 be delivered on the table, and the buyer has his own sorter at the 

 tables, and this is the cheapest way. 



Mr. Briggs — Our most successful picking is done with a common 

 ladder. We have three pickers to a wagon, and a plank from the wagon 

 to the tree, on which one man walks to carry the apples to the wagon, 

 while the others, one in the tree and one on the ground, do the gathering. 



APPLE ORCHARDS. 



(By J. C. Evans of Harlem, Mo.) 



The question is often asked, what is the matter with the apple 

 trees? Go in any direction you will, and you find in almost every or- 

 chard more or less missing or dead or dying trees, and the older the 



