Winter Meeting. 255 



members all the time and some members are dropping out, but there 

 seems to be an interest all the time, and one thing that I believe that 

 induces so many to come, we keep up our regular picnic dinners the year 

 around. Perhaps there is no other society in the State of Missouri that 

 does that. In the winter months we meet in a hall and pay for it, and 

 have our regular dinners and it is no trouble to get them to come in. 

 In the summer we got out to the houses on the invitation of the fruit 

 growers. I went from a live society — I started in a live society, the 

 Old Missouri Valley — and I am glad that I got into one that has come up 

 pretty close to it, if not at present in the lead. 



So far as the fruit prospects and the fruit crop that we have had. 

 we have no reason to complain particularly. While we have had a very 

 severe drouth our strawberry crop was about the best we have had in a 

 number of years, and we got pretty good prices, as compared with the 

 prices in former years. We had a good peach crop. I never saw finer 

 peaches in my life and the prices were good. We have had a good apple 

 crop and got good prices. While the strawberry prospects are not the 

 most flattering we will still have some strawberries. Those that have 

 been properly cultivated and taken care of, and will be properly mulched 

 through the winter will have some berries yet. My plants that are left 

 are looking well, and I had a good stand from the young setting of last 

 spring. While they didn't make so many runners, I think they will make 

 a fine crop, and I think they will be fine berries. 



Mr. Gano, Platte County. — We have no big tales to tell about our 

 crops of fruit. The only thing we work for and look to is the next 

 year's prospects. I believe that our society is the parent, not only of the 

 Missouri State Society, but the Kansas State Society. 



Mr. Evans. — I desire to report not for a society, not for a county, 

 but I want to make a report for the southern slope of the Ozark moun- 

 tains, not that I live there either, but I am there some. The rain ceased 

 and the drouth set in the 17th day of April and you cannot expect much 

 of a crop in an average kind of a country, where it had not rained a drop 

 since that; not enough to lay. the dust. The strawberry crop was more 

 than a half crop ; all other fruits were cut almost entirely off. The best 

 peaches we found in any of the orchards were where the ground was com- 

 pletely covered with stone, and in that case there was no surface soil, but 

 the red land comes up to the rocks ; the rocks lie right on the surface. The 

 roots of these peach trees penetrate that red land, which never gets dry, 

 and the finest specimens of peaches grew on the rockiest land in that 

 whole country. The best corn grown in that whole country, and it 

 was not much corn — nubbins — grew on those rocky points. The fruit 



