260 State Horticultural Society. 



for the last ten years. Now we have delegates visiting us from other 

 states that we would like to hear from, and what the condition of things 

 is. 



Mr. Barnes, Secretary Kansas State Horticultural Society. — Kan- 

 sas has had an extraordinary fruit year, and I congratulate Missouri 

 because it lays so close to Kansas this year. Our strawberries in the 

 south part of the state were excellent and a very profitable crop. In 

 the north part of the state they started in all right, and wound off rather 

 poor. The plants set last spring, some of them were killed, but the plants 

 that did live through are excellent. The patches are all green and thrifty 

 and ready for a crop next year, with the exception of where some of 

 them were killed. 



Our blackberries and raspberries were almost a total failure. The 

 pear crop has been fair. We never had as many peaches in the State 

 before as we had this year, and the growers got good prices. A num- 

 .ber of our new peach orchards were overloaded.. 



There were apples everywhere where apples were planted in our 

 state. In fact we never had such reports from apples before since the 

 orchards were planted, and in places where we didn't know that there 

 were any orchards, we found large orchards. In fact the buyers were 

 surprised. They came in with a rush to buy from the old orchards, whose 

 names they had on their books, and they found out that there were a lot 

 of new orchards. Our trouble has been in getting rid of the crop. 



In Wabaunsee county and down through there they didn't antici- 

 pate such a crop. Our apples during the drouth, as here in Missouri, 

 were very small.; when the rain came they were not to exceed three- 

 quarters of an inch — the winter apples — and after the rains came we 

 were surprised at the development. They seemed to be freer from in- 

 sects and diseases than usual, and they grew so rapidly that we were 

 surprised. V/e were overtaken with a shortage of barrels and a shortage 

 of facilities to take care of them. I do not say that individuals have 

 not grown more apples, for Judge Wellhouse has grown more apples 

 in years before than he did this year, but the state taken as a whole and 

 the young trees that came into bearing for the first or second time — 

 the first good crop — they have succeeded better than ever before, and the 

 prices have been exceedingly good in near to the cities. We find that 

 out in the counties where there were no men there buying the apples 

 that the prices were not what they ought to have been in those cases. 

 Advantage may have been taken pf them in buying their crop as a whole 

 or in buying them in a certain condition. 



I would like to add, though, that our people are enthusiastic and 

 are still planting trees. The nursery men know more about that than I 



