Winter Meeting. 315 



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If tiierc is one here who contemplates embarking- in commercial 

 orcharding I invite you to investigate this county. Visit us in May 

 and we will ascend the mounds upon and around which our village is 

 builded, and view the landscape fur miles and miles and you will not 

 wonder that we called our town "Mayview." The man in the north- 

 west will talk to you, perhaps for hours, about the wonderful forma- 

 tion of his soil — no rock, no hardpan — roots of the trees go down and 

 down, and water comes up and up, yet in this year 1901, while we 

 wished and waited for rain, and would have rejoiced to have had more 

 moisture from either up or down, the few sprinkles we had matured 

 as fine apples as ever went into barrels. Let the Ozark man use the 

 stoneboat ax and grubbing- hue, let him work half the vear to conserve 

 moisture, the other half growing cowpeas and scattering train loads of 

 fertilizer, let him rack his brains and lose his sleep over Root Rot, 

 Woolly Aphis and Bitter Rot, you come to the hemp lands around 

 A'layview. Plant your trees, and while they grow, raise big crops of 

 corn to feed to pigs, sow to clover and fatten calves, and then fill the 

 barrels with as fine Bens as were ever reddened by October frosts. 



SUCCESSFUL PLUM GROWING. 

 (By E. L. ]\Iason, Trenton, ]\Io.) 



There are so many important points, connected with successful 

 plum growing, that it will be impossible to treat the subject thorough- 

 ly, in a short paper. Besides, plum growing on a large scale, is com- 

 paratively a new industry, in North Missouri, especially in Grundy 

 county. Still more, the great interest taken by Luther Burbank and 

 others in creating new varieties, has made a large list of new plums, 

 of which many are very promising, and when fully tested may prove 

 superior to the leading varieties of the present time. So just what will 

 be planted in plum orchards in the near future is an unsettled question. 



The experience concerning the hardiness of plums the winter of 

 '98 and '99 has made us somewhat cautious about what we plant. So 

 in planting a plum orchard for the best results, it seems best not to 

 place too much dependence on kinds that are not entirely hardy. The 

 Japan and Domestic varieties have not shown sufficient hardiness in 

 many cases for severe winters, especially the winter of '98 and '99. So 

 it would seem a safer plan to plant a good proportion of the best na- 

 tive varieties along with choice Japan and domestic kinds, and tl'.creby 

 partially insure the orchard against a total failure from severe cold or 



