SUMMER MEETING. 21 



fruit better than in the other sections. The cost of cultivation and value of crops 

 would not vary a great deal if the right crops are grown and properly managed. 

 The bluffs are fine for small fruits and vegetables and unexce'led for red clover. 



We have netted $150 per acre from a crop of celery grown in a young orchard. 

 On this formation a friend netted $80 per acre from potatoes grown in his young 

 orchard, while others, after cutting a crop of clover hay, cut the second crop for 

 seed from some of these lands, which sold and gave a return of $20 per acre. The 

 bluffs and river hills of North Missouri are high, healthy and beautiful, and stand 

 drouth remarkably well, and the main lines of railroad follow the rivers, running 

 along near the foot of the bluff*!*, which afford good shipping facilities, thereby add- 

 ing value to small fruit and vegetables grown in the orchard and very much reduc- 

 ing the cost of care and cultivation. 



We feel perfectly safe, from our own experience, that if these lands are planted 

 in apple orchards and cultivated in small fruits, vegetables and red clover, they 

 will pay for all the care and cultivation of the same, and return a good interest on 

 the investment after the first year, leaving ail the increase in value of orchard 

 from growth of trees a net gain to the owner, which, at the end of five years, 

 counting the trees to be worth $3 each, the lowest value ever put on such orchard 

 by competent judges in North Missouri, and we have $210 per acre. Now we will 

 deduct for cost of land $25 per acre, for trees $7, plowing and checking $2, plant- 

 ing $2, protecting from rabbits $2, for incidental expenses $2; total per acre $40, 

 and for forty acres $lt500, on which we have 2800 fine trees in bearing, which, at 

 the low value of $3 each, makes $8400, a net profit over cost of $6800. 



But count the cost of land, planting, care and cultivation of the orchard in 

 North ^Missouri 25 per cent more than is estimated in this paper, and deduct 

 the same from the real value of the orchard at the end of five years, and it will be 

 found that no other investment will return £uch large profits on capital invested. 

 i^&TTy the orchard forward ten years till it is fifteen years old, and the result will 

 show a much greater gain for the second and third periods of five years than the 

 first. We know many orchards in North Missouri that have netted $100 to $400 

 per acre in a single year. This beats grain and stock growing, it beats merchan- 

 dising, it beats banking, it beats gold and silver mining, either with or without 

 free coinage ; it beats gambling in stocks^on the board of trade, and for young men 

 it will beat sowing wild oats, and yield a more satisfactory harvest. Why, then, 

 do not more engage in orchard growing? Simply because' Young America is too 

 impatient to wait a few years for the trees to grow into bearing. The spirit of 

 the age is for investments that will give a quick return. But the quick return, in 

 my mind, has been overworked. 



If it were possible to show up North Missouri in all her grandeur and glory, 

 the great advantages of her geographical position in the center of the great union 

 of states, and her grand system of magnificent railroads running out into all parts 

 of the civilized world, giving us a market for all our immense products at our 

 homes ; her beautiful rivers^and small lakes teeming with fish, numerous mineral 

 springs of health-restoring and life-giving properties, her broad, rich and inex- 

 haustible bottoms, the beautiful and picturesque bluffs of peculiar and unexcelled 

 fertility, her high, rolling, beautiful, productive prairies, the care and pleasure of 

 ■cultivating these fine, soft, mellow lands, free from stone and clods, and which 

 need nounder-drainage,'her immense^crops of grain and vast herds of fat stock, her 

 wonderful fruits, unexcelled in color and quality ; and, above all this, look at her 

 intelligent, industrious, law-abiding citizens, her schools, colleges and churches, 

 thrifty towns and great cities, the wonder and admiration of the world for their 



