20 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



And this we can only have on blufls and hills with deep hollows and ravines for 

 cold air and frost to settle in, the warm air rising during the night, and protecting- 

 the fruit on the higher land. Here some have been led into the error of thinking- 

 that altitude was all that was needed. Not so. for on the great plateaus of the 

 world we often find immense tracts of land so nearly of the same level as not td 

 afford sufficient drainage for the surplus water, and in all such places we find but 

 little variation of temperature arising from diflference in elevation, hence the high, 

 appreciation in general of bluff and hill land and land adjacent to rivers and large 

 bodies of water where fruit is grown for orchards, as it often saves them from kill- 

 ing frosts by fog. 



The cost of the bluff' and hill land in North Missouri ranges from $10 to $30 

 per acre, owing to lay of land, locality and improvement. That at $10 would be 

 the field unimproved, of which there is only a small amount, and from the most of 

 which the timber has been cut once, but on most of which there is a second growth 

 sufficient in value of cord-wood to pay for clearing the land. The average cost of 

 such land when prepared for planting would be $15 per acre. The average cost of 

 improved farms in this range is $25 per acre, all ready for planting except plowing. 

 Not one acre of this will ever need artificial drainage, for the reason that it not 

 only has the surface drainage, but moat of them are underlaid with beds of mar) 

 varying from 50 to 100 feet deep, and of equal fertility from the surface to the bot- 

 tom of the formation. These marl beds are perforated with orifices from the surface 

 to the bottom, connecting with each other, and, in the language of Prof. Swallow, 

 constitute the most thorough system of drainage imaginable. This formation is 

 exceedingly light and mellow, and is full of all the elements required to sustain 

 vegetable life. It is very friable, and there is probably no soil in existence that- 

 under the plow becomes more loose and mellow, yet, from its superior natural un- 

 der-drainage, it can be worked after a week's rain with but a few hours of sunshine. 

 This formation is of inexhaustible fertility, and would make a good fertilizer for 

 orchard land in Eastern states that cost from $50 to $200 per acre, and from $20 to 

 $50 more for tile drainage. We have been thus minute in our description of this- 

 formation, in order to show the great saving in cost of preparation and fertilizing, 

 and also in cost of cultivation. 



All these lands can be cultivated with one-half the team power of Eastern 

 lands. By way of proof and comparison, we have run a turning plow in this land 

 ten inches deep, with a small team of mules, plowing two acres a day ; and we have 

 seen on the fine wheat and orchard lands of the Shenandoah valley, Virginia, four 

 large stout horses running a turning plow six inches deep, and a gang of hands 

 following with mauls breaking the clods. In most all of the Eastern states the 

 land is heavy clay, liable to bake hard, in some spots quite stony, in others wet and 

 spouty. 



Having been born and raised in northwestern Virginia, and being engaged in 

 the nursery and orchard work from boyhood till I was 30 years of age — in which 

 time I traveled over a number of the Eastern states selling nursery stock — I had a 

 grand opportunity to know what it cost to prepare the land and grow an orchard 

 in that soil. And now, after 24 years spent in the nursery and orchard growing in 

 North Missouri, I am prepared to say that I can prepare the land, plant and culti- 

 vate 40 acre's of orchard here with the labor and expense that 10 acres would 

 require there. On these bluff lands apple trees should be planted 25 feet apart each 

 way, and on bottom and rich prairie lands 30 feet each way. This will make 50 

 trees to the acre on bottom and prairie lands and 70 on the bluffs. On the bluffs 

 the trees will not grow so large, will bear earlier and heavier and will color their 



