Orcharding on the Plains. 199 



do not deem it necessary, for I hardly think any one familiar with existing 

 facts will endeavor to controvert these statements, so far, at least, as applied 

 to orcharding in Missouri, Eastern Kansas and Nebraska. But the question 

 here arises, how far out on the plains will the industry prove successful. 

 Here let us examine the records. Referring to the county reports on file in 

 the Secretary's office of the Kansas Horticultural Society, we find that in 

 every county lying between the eastern boundaries of the State and the 

 ninety-eighth meridian west, which includes nearly the eastern half of the 

 State, all classes of orchard trees common to other and more Eastern States 

 are being successfully grown and fruited, excepting the peach, which has not 

 been generally successful north of latitude 39°, and is most abundantly pro- 

 ductive in the range between 37° and 38° of latitude, which embraces the two 

 southern tiers of counties. Beyond the ninety eighth meridian west, most of 

 the orchards are yet young and not up to a bearing age. The wood growth 

 for 1883 is reported good and healthy, and in several counties strong. The 

 counties of Jewell, Smith, Mitchell, Lincoln, Barton, Rice and Reno report 

 the first product of apple orchards in 1883; all of these counties are in the 

 belt between the ninety-eighth and ninety-ninth meridian, and include 

 nearly the entire width of the State north and south. Pushing on to the west 

 of the ninety-ninth meridian to the one hundredth, we take in a belt contain- 

 ing fourteen counties, all newly settled, and hence not much advanced in any 

 of the industries relating to the culture of land. Yet more than half of these 

 counties report a successful planting and growth of orchard trees. 



At Hays City, located near the one hundredth meridian, in 1882, it was my 

 privilege to examine the orchards of the Hon. M. Allen, which showed every 

 evidence of healthy development, the cherry being in frviit at the time, and 

 which in quality was equal to any seen in the most eastern counties. Fol- 

 lowing the Arkansas valley westward the same year, I found a condition of 

 orchard trees equal in health and vigor of growth to that generally found in 

 eastern counties of the State. At Sterling, in Rice county, on the farm of 

 J. B. Schlichter, the previous and current year's wood growth of apple trees 

 was, on an average, strong and very stocky. Passing on this line and in con- 

 nection at Great Bend, in Barton county, Garfield, in Pawnee county, at 

 Dodge City, in Ford county, and skipping Gray county into Sequoyah at Gar- 

 den City and Larkin, in Kearney county — the last two being under a system 

 of irrigation — we find evidences sufficiently encouraging to warrant further 

 efforts. Trees were doing well wherever intelligently treated. At the third 

 annual fair of this Society, held at Topeka, in September, 1883, the county of 

 Republic, lying on the extreme northern limit, and Saline, at about a central 

 point and adjoining the ninety-eighth west meridian, and Washington, Riley 

 and Davis, on the ninety- seventh meridian, exhibited in contest a product 

 creditable to any county. Being from young trees which were in a high state 

 of vigor, they would have excelled in many respects the product of the best 

 orchards in the eastern counties of Kansas or any State to the east. There 

 is a force in the soil of these western plains that produces a remarkable de- 



