ANNUAL WINTER MEETING AT WARRENSBUBG. 251 



of our State. Unfortunately, however, many wondering eyes followed 

 on© of our leaders in horticulture across the mountains, and are flirt- 

 ing at present with the tropical advantages of California. But never 

 mind, they will look our way again, and feel ashamed of ever slighting, 

 so fair a country as old Missouri. 



But though surrounded by all this horticultural glory, can we af- 

 ford to ignore the leading progressive ideas of this day which have 

 ushered our sister prairie States on the pathway' of successful and pop- 

 ular culture, from which they are already reaping a rich harvest of 

 material benefits ? Let us reflect for a moment what a wealth of most 

 valuable timber might be raised on thousands of acres of alluvial lands 

 along the Missouri river, which being subject to periodical overflows, 

 are in greater part uncultivated, and given up to a spontaneous growth 

 of willows and useless brushwood. 



« 



How many thousands of acres of productive soil remain idle and 

 produce absolutely nothing to the tax-paying owner ? Suppose some of 

 these to be stocked with the catalpa, yellow poplar, the ash, and other 

 highly valuable economic timber trees ? A few years of cultivation 

 suffice to rase any plantation of trees, closely planted, to such a height 

 as to shade the ground and prevent the growth of weeds. Consider- 

 ing the insignificant price of seedling trees offered by the wholesale 

 nurseries of the west, it can truly be said that intelligent enterprise 

 in this direction is within the reach of all. The trees thus cultivated 

 in forest form will grow whilst the farmer sleeps, and as for the cash, 

 value of those cut out as growth increases, and the prospective value 

 of those remaining for future years, it may be quite useful and inter- 

 esting to farmers of our State to consult the experience of the success- 

 ful and extensive plantations of adjoining States, and profit by infor- 

 mation disseminated through th'e excellent manuals of forestry pub- 

 lished annually by the horticultural societies of Kansas, Iowa and 

 Nebraska. 



Th*? manual published by the Forestry Association of Minnesota 

 serves likewise special and complimentary mention. In which year of 

 grace will Missouri's Report on Home Forest Culture be published ? The 

 answer to this timely question rests with the action of this time-hon- 

 ored society. With prohibition staring in our face, we may as well 

 resolve to transfer our sympathies from grape culture to progressive 

 forest culture, which no spirit of fanaticism will ever disturb or assail. 



I have said above, that western and northwestern enterprise led 

 on, not by the live-stock men or by the grain farmers, as a class, but 

 by the horticultural intelligence of the people, has given to the tree- 

 less States a fair substitute for native forests. 



