The age-herald., 1899-05-03
LARGEST ORCHARD
 IN THE WORLD

 William D. Curtis, in the Chicago Record.
 The largest orchard in the world Is in Kansas, and belongs to Fred Wellhouse, who came from IndaniaaDolis, and was once editor of the Indiana Farmer He was the first man who had the courage to engage in fruit-raising to any extent, and has been well rewarded for his faith and enterprise. He is the apple king of the world, has made a handsome fortune, has retired from active business, leaving his orchard in charge of his sons, and lives in a handsome residence at Topeka
 MT. Wellhouse devotes his energies and abilities these days to the uragement of fruit culture as president of the state horticultural society He planted his first orchard in 1876, and now has 954 acres in apples alone. His largest single orchard consists of 800 acres at Wakarusa, Osags county, and his smallest is a patch of IF acres at Glenwood near Leavenworth. He has apple farms in four other counties, including altogether about 100000 trees.
 MT. Wellhouse considers the Ben Davis apple the best staple, and has 620 acres, or more than one-third of his orchards, planted in that variety. Four hundred and
 
 pippin, 19O acres acres to the Jonathan, 160 acres to the Gano, 15O to the York Imperial and "A to the winesap He treats his apples as if they were jewels His trees are tended with the greatest care. He employs ex- perienced and careful men. His fruit is picked by hand as fast as it ripens. The perfect apples are wrapped in tissue paper and packed in boxes which are sent to cold storehouses and kept at an even tenfA perature of about 40 degrees until the mar ket is favorable. Then they are shipped to Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Denver, San Francisco and the City of Mexico, and a considerable quantity goes to European markets. Queen Victoria and Emperor William eat apples from the Wellhouse orchards. There is always a demand for them both at home and abroad, and some years the crop has brought as much as $95,00O more than half of which was profit.
 
 MT. Wellhouse is by no means the only apple man in Kansas. He has only 100000 trees, while in the entire state there are 7,533,S5S apple trees in bearing; 4,O5S 162 peach trees. 1,2125S4 cherry trees and 628,- 2S3 plum trees In addition to these there are 3641, 3S5 apple trees too young to bear fruit and nearly 2.000 GOO peach trees. The number is increasing at the rate of about 5OO.000 year. There are altogether not fewer than 2O,O00,0O0 fruit trees in Kansas, or about fifteen trees per capita of the population.
 The exports of apples from the United States during the winter just closed will reach about 900 barrels, worth from S4 to S5 each in the Liverpool market. The freight from Kansas City to Liverpool will average $1.40 barrel.
 For the foreign market apples are wrap ped in paper and placed in boxes, four layers deep, ninety-six to the box, all se- lected fruit, with the best on top, of course. The covers are put on with a machine that presses on the ends of the boards and springs both the bottom and the top. A barrel will make about four and one-half boxes, and 1000 boxes make a carload, weighing about 40O0O pounds.
 The poorer grades of apples are other wise disposed of. The "seconds" are sold in the local market in barrels or shipped to the neighborng cities, but they have to be perfectly sound and of good appearance. The imperfect ones go to the cider mill or the evaporating houses. In a well-ordered orchard the product of the evaporator, which takes the place of the old-fashioned dried apple, ought to pay the expense of maintenance; the cider ought to pay the grocer bill and leave the proceeds of the barreled fruit clean profit. There is no better fruit country in the world than eastern Kansas and Oklahoma.