628 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 



PIONEER NURSERYMEN AND FRUIT GROWERS OF INDIANA. 



W. H. RAGAN, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



"\Ybere yonder marble city tops the plain, 



And shining temples in the sunset glow. 

 Where wealth and beauty hold, perpetual reign, 



And busy hands the seeds of progress sow. 

 In that same spot, a few short years ago. 



The cabin of the swarthy pioneer, 

 In cheei'less solitude, surpassing show, 



Nurtured beneath its roof the hearts that were 



To build the empire of the western hemisphere." 



This hastily written sketch, with its many omissions, inaccuracies and 

 imperfections, is only submitted at this time as a suggestion to an abler 

 writer, with more full and accurate resources at his command, who, it is 

 hoped, will soon volunteer his services as a historian to chronicle the 

 worthy events in the lives of our predecessors who so daringly came to 

 pave the way for us — 



"To cheer the world and plant the newer gospel as he went." 



Practically all central and southern Indiana was then one vast forest 

 wilderness. Into its almost impenetrable solitude, with its dangers and 

 its privations, our forefathers pushed their way. There were no railroads 

 nor highways then, for no one had gone before to prepare the way for 

 their coming. Fortunately, they came not as adventurers in .search of 

 places of profitable investment, but as home seekers, generally from the 

 ranks of those of moderate means, Avho thought to better their conditions 

 where good homes were supposed to be within the possibilities of their 

 search. The larger portion of these early immigrants were from the 

 slave-holding Stales— in most instances men who fled from such a blight- 

 ing curse, and to whom humiile homes, even in the wilderness, were pref- 

 erable to immediate contact with that great social evil that surrounded 

 them. To one class of zealous philanthropists we owe much for our early 

 horticulture and pomological development— the Friends, Quakers, gener- 

 ally from North Carolina. As a rule they settled in communities or 

 neighborhoods, and to this day those "neighborhoods" are the bright spots 



