SUMMER MEETING. 81 



ries ; and we can assure the reader that the comparison will, in the 

 estimation of all honest and impartial critics, be in favor of Missouri. 



Major J. C. Evans, President of the Missouri State Horticultural 

 Society, who with Mr. Goodman, the energetic Secretary of the same, 

 and other able and progressive citizens, prepared the fruits, etc., for 

 exhibition, is in charge. He assured us that he had sufficient fruit 

 preserved to sustain the show until the new fruits are ready, and 

 enough apples in cold storage to keep 500 plates supplied daily with 

 fresh supplies as needed. 



This display of fruit meets our expectations. It is a fair repre- 

 sentation of what can be done in the way of commercial orcharding in 

 the State. It explains how and why it is, that in successful years 

 these products alone yield the growers twenty Millions of dollars, why 

 the State is so rapidly being settled by the experienced fruit-growers 

 of the North and East, and finally, why Missouri is to become by its 

 unexcelled soil and mild climate the great orchard of America. 



There is room in this thought to dwell, were our space unlimited, 

 for very few even of our best read citizens have any comprehensive or 

 adequate idea of the magnitude of its possibilities. There is reason 

 for the possession of the largest peach orchard in the world ; reason 

 for the largest fruit farm in this or any other country, and, too, why 

 commercial orcharding is so rapidly becoming one of the leading 

 industries of the State. For fresh fruits for daily use for shipment 

 to the large centers of distribution, and others for trans-shipment 

 abroad, no State has exhibited finer qualities of fruit, or a higher ap- 

 preciation of the crop, as one worthy of the keenest skill and best 

 judgment to insure success and ample returns. When a man can in 

 successful years secure a higher price for his product than his land 

 would bring in the market, he comes pretty near being in a profita- 

 ble business. Measurably this is in soil, climate and shipping facili- 

 ties, but that other all important factor, the men for the work, must 

 have equal consideration. To the men at the head of the State Hor- 

 ticultural Society, the State and the world owe a debt which time and 

 history only can pay; and when our agriculture, stock-raising and 

 dairy industries shall have the same skilled and experienced manage- 

 ment in the hands of similar men of good judgment, then will all the 

 rural industries of the State compare with it, and Missouri claim and 

 maintain the proudest place in American industrial progress and enter- 

 prise. — Colman's Eural World. 

 H E — 6 



