208 State Horticultural Society. 



THIRD SESSION.— Wednesday Afternoon. 



The meeting was called to order by the president. 

 First there was given a song, "The Old Ox Team/' by the Male 

 Quartette. 



THE CHARACTER OF SOILS, LOCATION AND VARIETIES 

 FOR THE CHERRY ORCHARD. 



Bv J. J. Kiser, Stanberrv, Mo. 



Our worthy secretary has assigned the above topic to nie and 

 requests a paper thereon. Left to my own judgTnent, he should have 

 assigned the subject to better, at least more experienced hands ; but if 

 this paper will call out that much better part, the consideration and 

 discussion by the society, with the statements of the ripe experience of 

 its members which our efficient secretary so ably jots down, it may not 

 have been written in vain. 



The character of the soil in northwest Missouri, for which alone 

 I can speak, is pre-eminently a fruit soil ; our subsoil — a deep stratum 

 of from twenty to forty feet of porous joint clay — can only be equaled 

 if excelled by that formation known as the Missouri river bluff or 

 Loess formation. This joint clay is in reality a soil in which if 

 brought to sunlight and properly aerated, will grow the finest plants. 

 The writer has seen clover and bluegrass growing luxuriantly in road 

 cuts where every trace of surface soil was washed or worked out, and 

 has successfully and without manure raised flowers on a mound of 

 earth that had been brought up twenty-eight feet. Add to and over 

 this a layer of from six inches to six feet of vegetable decomposition, 

 mixed with drift soils and sand, for ages forming a loam in which is 

 every element of plant structure and it would be hard to find a spot in 

 northwest Missouri not adapted to the growth of trees adapted to our 

 climate. Of course one might find some places too low for proper air 

 or surface drainage or naturally inclined to be wet, springy or spouty. 

 The eherrv tree will not live with its feet in standing water, neither 



