3L4 STATE HORTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 



Are these not profitable returns ? And yet there are numerous 

 instances where the profits have been even two or three times as 

 great as these I have mentioned. Why is it, then, that our people do not 

 grow more fruit? Why not enough for home consumption, at least ? 



You can travel through some parts of our State over our railways 

 for hundreds of miles and never see an orchard larger than is necessary 

 for family use, and even very few of these. 



Our people do not fully realize our resources and advantages in 

 this line, although our State Horticultural Society, with all her local 

 and county societies, is doing a grand work in giving instruction and 

 pointing out profitable lines of work ; yet it has a wide field for useful- 

 ness in this direction. 



In conversation with a gentleman not long ago on the subject of 

 cherries, he told me that they had not failed in his part of the State 

 more than once in four or tive years, and that he believed there was no 

 place in the whole country better adapted to growing cherries than 

 his county. 



He told me of trees that had produced four and five cases of twenty- 

 four quarts in a season ; but when I asked him why he did not plant 

 forty acres, he looked at me as though he doubted somewhat my mental 

 equilibrium. 



What we want to learn to do is to plant that crop that is adapted 

 to our particular soil, climate and surrounding conditions. 



Where we have these in our favor and know that we can produce 

 a certain crop successfully, then plant it, and plant it extensively. 



Herein lies the secret of the success of the peach-growers of the 

 Chesapeake peninsula, the grape-growers of Kew York and Ohio, the 

 small fruit-growers of Southern Illinois and the prune and orange 

 growers of California. 



When we of Missouri adopt and follow this plan, and plant these 

 different fruits on a commercial scale and in the respective parts of the 

 state best adapted to such crops, then will horticulture in Missouri 

 become famous and profitable in proportion as we combine the princi- 

 ples of science, business, good common sense and energy in its prose- 

 cution. 



Many fear lest we shall overdo the business and be unable to find 

 markets for our products, while the fact is that it is only by the pro- 

 duction of a crop in large quantities that we can find a market. 



It is the only means by which we can secure quick and cheap 

 transportation. Another advantage is that it makes us independent of 

 commission-men, which is no small consideration in itself. 



