314 State Horticultural Society. 



State aiul thus secure in one report a collection of the known facts 

 upon this primary or fundamental step in orcharding. The book would 

 furnish to the inquirer the knowledge of where he could obtain the 

 foundation upon which to erect his Horticultural structure. In all 

 lines of husbandry we often plant in wrong kind of soil for best suc- 

 cess. If there are sections of the State especially good for apple 

 growing we ought to know where they are and also be willing for the 

 balance of mankind to know it. Hence the- need of some one report 

 containing all the facts. This State, great in many lines of production, 

 will be in a few years the banner apple State of the Union. Centrally 

 located in the Mississippi valley, with the alluvial soils of her great 

 rivers, and the semi-mountainous lands of the south, the State cannot 

 be surpassed for her acres of apple lands. We read of the apple belt 

 of Eastern Kansas, of Southern Iowa, Southern Illinois^ and North- 

 ern Arkansas. Men talk and write of the great fruit belt of Michigan 

 and the apple district of New York, but we grow apples from Arkansas 

 to Iowa and from Kansas to Illinois. The area of commercial growing 

 is constantly enlarging. A year or two ago, one of our number goes 

 •into the southeast and discovers a garden spot, the possibilities of 

 which no one can foretell. Some of the high prairie lands are not the 

 best for apples, yet the home without an orchard is an exception, and 

 where apples can be grown for family use they can be grown for mar- 

 ket. We have some spots too wet for orchards and some too rich for 

 fruitage, yet the State from boundary to boundary certainly cannot be 

 excelled for her available orchard lands. 



Remember, the Father of Waters washes the eastern border, the 

 Big Muddy the northwest and cuts the State into halves, thus furnish- 

 ing acres of alluvial soil, dry, deep and rich, and the strong clay lands 

 of the timbered sections all over the State will place Missouri at the 

 head of the list of all commercial growing states. 



Having written of orchard lands of the State in a general way, I 

 wish in closing, to call your attention to some of the advantages of 

 my own county. No special effort has ever been made to herald abroad 

 the adaptability of our soil and climate for orcharding. No railroads 

 carry prospectors at half rates or no rates, neither have they or landed 

 companies flooded the country with hand-bills telling of her wonderful 

 resources as an apple countr}^, yet we are planting trees by the thou- 

 sands and producing apples by the train loads. Situated on the Mis- 

 souri river, forty miles from the cellars of Kansas Cit}^ with her high, 

 dry, melloy soil that characterizes hemp lands wherever found, Lafay- 

 ette is destined to become one of the first counties in the State in the 

 growing of apples. 



