296 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Pears, plums and cherries all do well and pay well for the use of 

 land and cost of raising them ; but we are too far north to be success- 

 ful in raising peaches. However, as the trees grow thriftily with us, 

 and we can get at least one crop in three years, no orchard is con- 

 sidered complete without a portion of it set to peaches. 



This country lies east and outside of the track of those high winds 

 which are so fatal to fruit-raising in all that great region beginning fifty 

 miles west of the Missouri river and extending to the Eocky mountains. 

 The writer has lived in or has been personally acquainted with the 

 Platte purchase since 1857, and during that time has not known a single 

 instance where the fruit was blown from the trees or materially dam- 

 aged by high winds. 



Our strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and grapes are shipped 

 to all the leading cities of the West, and enter into competition in the 

 market with the fruit from all other portions of the country, and com- 

 mand the highest prices for the season. 



Our small fruits are raised as cheaply, and they yield as abund- 

 antly to the area planted as anywhere, and with a regularity of crop 

 unsurpassed. 



Oar railroad lines are ample. They bring us in direct communica- 

 tion with the outside world in all directions. What is needed here at 

 present more than anything else is more fruit, so that it will pay the 

 railroads to put special cars on passenger trains for carrying small 

 fruits to market, thereby saving to the grower the extra expense of 

 expressing. More fruit will also induce capital to erect factories at 

 various points to work up that part of the crop which otherwise goes 

 to waste. 



I will say in conclusion that as fruit-raising becomes more and 

 more a specialty, the crops are more certain and the returns more sat- 

 isfactory. G. W. Nesbitt. 



PUTNAM COUNTY. 



Powersville, Mo., Nov. 2, 1892. 

 I herewith send you my report for Putnam county : 

 Putnam county is about half and half prairie and timbered land ; 



east part mostly timbered; limestone and clay soil, underlaid with 



coal; west part mostly prairie, with timber along the streams; very 



fair alluvial soil. 



Chariton river is east boundary line ; all the east slopes in county 



are adapted to winter wheat, with satisfactory yield. This is a fine blue- 



