FRUIT FARMING. 623 



My location is in Nemaha county, directly on the west 

 bank of the Missouri river, thirty miles north of the Nebraska 

 and Kansas State line. Tlie elevalion is a fraction over one 

 thousand feet above the sea level, on high, upland, open prairie. 

 We, doubtless, have an advantageous climatic influence from 

 the large water course, and abundance of native timber ad- 

 jacent. Here we raise apples, pears, peaches, plums, prunes, 

 cherries, apricots, nectarines, grapes, and all the other small 

 fruits. 



My first fruit farm consisted of sixty acres, planted with 

 the varieties of fruits named. To this I added one hundred 

 acres in apples, peaches and apricots in the Spring of 1875. 

 This planting of 1875, was entirely destroyed by grasshoppers 

 that year, together with over three hundred thousand other 

 trees and vines, nursery stock, not a tree left of the hundred 

 acre orchard, those transplanted that Spring seeming to have 

 preference with 'hopper appetites. This was the only grass- 

 hopper visitation of the region in my residence of twenty-four 

 years in Nebraska. 



That farm I sold in 1876, and in the Spring of 1878, 

 planted me a new fruit farm of forty acres, which I am pleased, 

 for personal reasons, to call " Furnas Evergreen Home Fruit 

 Farm." In putting out this farm, I have endeavored to avail 

 myself of the experience and observation of my twenty-four 

 years residence, especially in the region in which I am located. 

 The ground, as in my old orchard, is high, upland, open 

 prairie, in fact adjoins the old farm. The exposure is slightly 

 to the west and north, but all nearly level. The lay of this 

 land is about as I would like it, well drained, inclining to the 

 points of the compass indicated. 



The entire tract is surrounded with hedge fence. On the 

 north line Osage, west line honey locust, south and east 

 willows. Twenty feet from hedge line, inside, I have a row of 

 evergreens, Scotch, Austrian, and white pines on three sides 

 and European larch on the other, planted twenty and twelve 

 feet apart, corresponding with fruit tree orchard rows adjoin- 

 ing. Twenty feet inside this I have my orchard, in blocks of 



