Summer Meeting. 21 



chard nice and clean, in good cultivation and you see nothing but fruit 

 in their orchards. They are not afraid to go down in their pockets and 

 take out a little money. The president of their association told me that 

 they had i,ooo members who paid a membership fee of $i per month — 

 Si 2,000 a year. Xow, think of this. Think of our fees here, and they 

 wont hardly pay for the annual reports and the two meetings a year. 

 Now we can see what those people are doing. We can find a lesson there 

 if we will. Better things are found than growing peaches there and 

 shipping them to Missouri. They have not got the market there that we 

 have here. Why. I am informed by Air. Bagby that they have shipped 

 lo to 15 and 20 car loads of peach trees to California. But I warn to 

 tell you something. They will take those trees and in a few years will 

 ship the fruit back here to Missouri and it will cost you twice as mucli 

 as our own peaches. Xow, is it possible for those people out there to 

 raise so much better fruit than we can that it will pay to have our trees 

 shipped out there and then have the fruit shipped back here? Thep?.- 

 people do that and say they make money out of it. Xow, why can't we 

 raise our own fruit here ? Can't we grow it ourselves ? It looks to me 

 like w^e are a little behind the times. Haven't we the soil here? Of 

 course we have. * * * We have fine land for them. We liave the 

 Ozarks for peach orchards. Of course we can grow our own peache-. 

 Then there are cherries and many other fruits. We can grow these here 

 ourselves. We. as a Society, have been trying to get the people to take 

 hold of this fruit raising in a business-like manner. Now theii» there 

 is one thing, ladies and gentlemen, that I have missed. I am going to 

 say this wnth all due respect to the farmer. The farmer's sons can learn 

 all about farming at their homes, but 99 out of every 100 know but Uttle 

 about fruit growdng. Why? Because their father knows but very little 

 about it. In most cases the orchard has but very little attention paid to 

 it because it is only a secondary matter on the farm. Xow then their 

 sons ought to take a course in Horticulture and learn all they can about 

 it ; then the farmer would not have to depend on the fruit dealer for hAi 

 fruit. Let us get our young people interested ; have them study the or- 

 chard and get them to take hold of the work. We do not have the diffi- 

 culties here that they have in many other places. X^o irrigation here ; 

 about 38 inches of rain fall every year. When we have drouths let us 

 cultivate thoroughly and the chances are that the fruit will come out 

 allright. * * * They have been discouraged and yet they made more 

 money this }-ear than last year and it will no doubt be so with the apples 

 and peaches. 



X^'ow, my dear friends, I hope you will attend these meetings. Come 

 in and let us exchange ideas. We want to learn to take the very best care 



