284 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETT. 



or check ana cultivated for four or five years, then sowed to clover. 

 It grows extra well on the timber land. The apple comes in bearing 

 in from five to six years. On the prairie, the land should be cultivated 

 two years before planting to fruit trees. 



Apple and peach trees can be bought for five dollars per hundred, 

 pears for twelve dollars per hundred. It will cost from one to one and 

 one-half dollars an acre to set them. It costs from ten to twelve and 

 one-half cents per bushel to pick and market the apple, and it sells 

 for forty to fifty cents per bushel. 



The society is good ; the settlement is mostly from the East — 

 Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and good schools all over the county. 



GREENE COUNTY. 



Greene county is situated in the southwest part of the State, 

 about 50 miles from Arkansas and 75 from Kansas. The population is 

 50,000. 



Two great trunk lines of railroad run through the county, the St. 

 Louis & San Francisco and the Kansas City & Gulf, giving connections 

 with all the large cities in the United States. 



The "Frisco" has two branches running from Springfield, one 

 north to Bolivar, in Polk county, and one to Chadwick, in Christian 

 county. 



The Gulf also has a direct line to Kansas City, via Clinton. The 

 railroad facilities are such that a market can be reached for our sur- 

 plus products by shipping in any direction we choose. The home 

 market is good. Springfield, a city of 30,000 inhabitants, and rapidly 

 growing, consumes a large amount of the surplus food products of the 

 county. 



The general topography of the land is gently rolling, though along 

 the streams we find hills and valleys of considerable magnitude. Prairie 

 land predominates in the county, though there is sufiBcient timber for 

 all ordinary purposes. 



The climate, take it the year round, is about as good as can be 

 found in the United States, except in California. The altitude is 1400 

 feet above sea level, being on the summit of ihe Ozark mountains, and 

 very nearly the highest point in the State. The county is well watered, 

 the James and Sac rivers and many smaller streams running through 

 it. Numerous springs abound, some near Springfield, of sufficient 

 capacity to supply a city of 100,000. 



