SUMMER MEETING. 19 



Of course this amount does not include hauling asheg, manure, draining or 

 Teplanting. These expenses may be great or small, as one may choose. With me 

 Teplantiog has been a nominal expense. Out of one planting of a hundred Garber 

 and Kiefer pears I lost not one and a very small per cent of all other trees planted. 



A real horticulturist, one who loves his trees, will spare neither time, pains 

 nor money, to make success. If we love our trees we will nurse them and feed 

 them, and patiently wait for the time to reap our abundant reward. 



IN^ NORTH MISSOURI. 



N. F. MURRAY, OREGON. 



We have in north Missouri three distinct classes of land. First, beginning at 

 the rivers, we have rich bottom land from one to 10 miles wide, back of this we 

 have a range of blulF and hill land from one to five miles wide ; and back of this 

 rich, rolling and level prairie. 



Orchards are grown succeesfully on all three of these subdivisions by select- 

 ing the most favorable spots, and might be extended over almost all of North Mis- 

 souri by artificial drainage and thorough preparation. But in order to present 

 this subject intelligently, we find it necessary to speak of these three sections sep- 

 arately. 



First, the bottom lands will range in price from $10 to $50 per acre, the low 

 priced bottom lands being wet and subject to overflow. These are unfit for 

 orchards. The higher and better class will cost, on an average, about |40 per acre, 

 and would need no preparation except to plow, harrow and check 30 feet each way. 

 Thi3 would be worth $2. Fifty 3-year-old trees would cost $5, the planting $1, 

 total for one acre, $4S ; and for 40 acres $1950. 



The cost of care and cultivation from and after planting depends on how much 

 you give them. But we will count on giving them good care, which will include 

 protection from rabbits and borers. Replanting the few that may fail to grow or 

 get destroyed, pruning and keeping the ground well cultivated and clean of weeds 

 can all be done and well done from the income of corn and vegetables grown in the 

 orchard for the first five years— this land being very rich and never failing to pro- 

 duce heavy crops of corn and potatoes, which may and should be grown in the 

 young orchard. It is safe to say that the income from such crops will coverall 

 ■cost of good care and cultivation. The rental value of such land would be $4 per 

 acre, which, in five years, would be $20 per acre. Add this to the first cost and we 

 have an orchard beginning to bear at a cost of $68 per acre. But the tax has not 

 been counted, and the interest on money received from rent. So we will add $7 an 

 acre, and say that the orchard at the end of five years has co3t the owner for land, 

 preparation, planting, care and culture, all of $75 an acre, or $3000 for 40 acres 

 containing 2000 trees, which, at $3 each, the lowest value put on such trees by com- 

 petent judges, will mike $6000, and you can't buy such orchards for this money, as 

 the owner puts a much higher value on them. The cost of land, preparation, cost 

 of trees, cultivation, value of crops and result on the best rolling prairie land 

 would be about the same. 



The bluif and hill range along the river and smaller streams of North Missouri 

 constitute the best and cheapest orchard land in this part of the State, and we be- 

 lieve they are unexcelled by any other country, and only equaled by a few similar 

 and highly favored spots on the globe. 



All orchards must have drainage', either natural or artificial, and the more 

 perfect the drainage the better it will be for the health of the trees and the quality 

 of the fruit, and if to land drainage we can add air drainage, so much the better. 



