180 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



food." Among: those in Clay county may be named Jos. and John 

 Broadhnrst, Hiram Fugett, Daniel Hufrhea, P. A. Hardwick, Simon 

 Hudson, B. P. Parrish, Elisba Todd, John Wilson, Eleven Thatcher^ 

 Jos. D. Gash, and many others unknown to the writer. 



A new impetus was given to fruit-growers, especially the apple,, 

 by Barry, Downing, Worden and others during the first half of this 

 century, and to them we are largely indebted for correct description^ 

 identity and nomenclature, as well as for many new varieties, the best 

 process of propagation, training and cultivation. 



These were followed by more scientific men. whose intelligence^ 

 perseverance and untiring energy have raised the standard of Ameri- 

 can apples to such perfection that they are sought for the world over^ 

 and command the highest prices in all markets. The new American 

 Ency. says of it: "So superior is the fruit of our own country in 

 Covent Garden market, I^London, that it commands almost fabulous 

 prices." 



Since the white man, civilization and whisky crossed the Missouri 

 river, and the "star of empire wended her way westward," the hardy 

 descendants of a noble ancestry have carried this noble fruit, and Win- 

 chester rifles, navy revolvers and train robberies, into every nook and 

 corner of the land of the noble red man, the disappearing buffalo, the 

 howling coyote and the winsome jack rabbit. Step by step they have 

 disputed their way with the Kansas thistle, the everlasting cactus, the 

 wicked rattlesnake and the cute prairie-dog, until orchards of big 

 apples and little apples, good apples and bad apples, dot the hills and 

 the valleys, the mountains and the plains, making the redwood hills of 

 Washington and Oregon, the oases of Idaho, Utah and Montana, the 

 rainless plains of New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado, and the "Great 

 American desert" of the old geographies, blossom as the rose — send- 

 ing forth a sweet perfume and delightful apples, pleasing to the sight, 

 good for food, greatly desired by and refreshing to all the people. 



It cannot be grown successfully in the tropics, nor north of lati- 

 tude 65°, and is not found in Lapland. Successful and profitable apple- 

 growing is confined to a zone little wider from north to south than the 

 United States, and extending from the Euphrates over Europe and to 

 our Pacific coast. In our own happy land it is confined to little more 

 than 300 miles north and south, and 1500 west from the Atlantic, the 

 center of this garden being in the Ozark mountains, in our own be- 

 loved State of Missouri, "The Land of Big Red Apples." 



ITS VALUE. 



Its value as a food product, and its importance as an article of 

 commerce, have been fully recognized by the establishment of a Divi- 



