TWENTIETH ANNUAL MEETING. 315 



than the Hale's Early, Early Tillotson, Crawford's Early and Late, Morris' Ked, 

 Old Mixon Cling and Free, and Htath Cling, than were grown in this neighbor- 

 hood, and that under rather a slovenly culture too. We are singularly free from 

 rot here, as well in peaches as in most otlier fruits, owing, I suppose, to our dry and 

 pure atmosphere, and can grow Hale's Early in perfection, when it rots in a great 

 many sections, and is condemned on that account. We bave a goo<l marliet here, 

 as will be seen from a few examples. Mr. Hubbard, who has an orchard about a 

 mile from town, told me but a few days ago that he had averaged $2 per bushel for 

 all the peaches he sold last fall. Capt. Struger sold from an orchard within the 

 city limits, and from about -JO to 50 trees of Hale's Early, $llJS worth of peaches 

 within about two weeks. Mr Edward Brown sold some Amsden and Alexander 

 peaches, grown on trees planted but the year before, at the rate of %Q per bushel. 

 Good peaches, well handled, need never wait for a buyer ; they will sell themselves 

 on our fruit stands. 



I believe, therefore, in the peach here as a profitable market fruit, and, as an 

 evidence of that belief, planted an orchard of them three years ago, to which I 

 have added every year, and if a kind Providence smiles on us next year and pro- 

 tects the abundant prospect we now have, I hope to obtain substantial proofs, and 

 will show the community what peach trees can do if well cared for. 



HOME. 



[An address delivered by Judge Arnold Krekel of Jeflerson City before the 

 State Horticultural Society at its meeting in Sedalia, January 31, 187S.] 



Garden, orchard and home are so near connected together that it cannot be 

 improper to specially speak of home before a gathering of horticulturists. After 

 family relations had once been established in the social organization, ties of alfec- 

 tion and obligations springing from them must have suggested •' Home" as a means 

 of fostering the former and the better to discharge the latter. Influences cluster- 

 ing around the family were, no doubt, influential in the establishment of individual 

 property rights, and we thus have the two great factors (family, property) by 

 which society has been trying to solve the problem of the race. The progress 

 made has not at all times been smooth nor rapid. This has caused impatient 

 reformers to suggest that the fault lay in the instruments employed, and there- 

 upon proceeded to cast aside the family and sought to destroy individual rights of 

 property. The continuance of the race they propose to succeed by free and unre- 

 strained intercourse, and maintain its well-being by holding property in common. 

 This means total annihilation of the present order of things, and hence the efforts 

 of communists and socialists to obliterate all vestiges of the past, even though it 

 require the destruction of all accumulations and savings. Such ideas have grown 

 up, gained advocates and strength in over-populated countries, where vast accumu- 

 lations of wealth in the hands of a few and abject poverty of the masses prevail. 



As a people, we are not suffering from over- population, but if suffering at all 

 In this direction, rather from the want of it. Large accumulation of wealth in the 

 hands of the few is observed with us, but poverty exists in exceptional cases only, 

 and is usually in consequence of some fault of the sufferer. This accumulation of 

 wealth is a source of irritation, if not of danger. Prudent legislation ought to 

 take note of this, and see to it that there is nothing in its tendencies to aid still 

 further such accumulation. Legislative favors are usually bestowed at the expense 

 of the community or its members, and if they are to be granted at all, let it be to 

 the helpless, rather than the powerful. Mill, the great English economist, as a 

 remedy, suggests limitations on the distribution of wealth, either by will or 



