THE CHICAGO & ALTON ROAD. ' 



Runs through part of the '"garden spot of the west." The counties 

 of Jackson, Lafayette, Saline, Howard, Randolph, Audrain, Boone, Cal- 

 laway, Pike, and St. Louis give a line of counties which will be found 

 hard to even equal in all this land of ours. All along and across the 

 many streams of these counties you will find the peculiar formation, the 

 character of soil, the projDer subsoil, the position and adaptability of 

 the lands to orchard growing if but care and good judgment are used in 

 the situation and the varieties used. The timber lands along the streams 

 are just such as are wanted for the best development of the fruits of our 

 state. Along the road also, you will find some of the best smaller cities 

 and villages of the state and they have never yet been supplied with 

 enough good fruit to fill their markets. 



Orcharding is a great big question. It is a word that has not been 

 known in its full meaning until of late years, and especially so in the 

 west. iSTot many years since if you had told a person that you were 

 going into the work of "Orcharding" he would hardly have known what 

 you meant. To-day we have hundreds of men who are ''OrcUarding" 

 in the truest and fullest sense of the word. Years ago a person would 

 have been thought wild who would plant an orchard of 100 acres. To- 

 day M^e find them by the hundreds over our western country' and many 

 another who is planting 300 acres, 400 acres, or perhaps even 1,000 

 acres. 'Now we are no more astonished when we hear of some one 

 planting two or three or more hundred acres of apple or j>each orchards. 

 The man now seems to go into it just as nuy other l)usincss man goes 



into his business. 



469 



