322 State Horticultural Society. 



FUTURE PROSPECTS OF MISSOURI HORTICULTURE. 



(J. C. Whltten, Horticulturist, University of Missouri, Columbia.) 



Horticulture has its problems and its apparent drawbacks. In- 

 sect enemies attack, • fungus diseases destroy, drought comes to mar 

 our hopes, frosts cause the liowers to wither and die. The active 

 horticulturist has before him a struggle for existence. Sometimes the 

 struggle seems to be almost an unequal one. The ills that beset our 

 plants sometimes all but destroy our hopes. Do we stop to think 

 that out of all this apparent evil, good may sometimes come as a 

 future reward? 



When our fruit crop fails for any of the above reasons it is but 

 human to regret it. It causes discouragement even in the heart of 

 the most resolute. Failure means not only sweeping away the legiti- 

 mate fruits of our labor, but in some cases it even means the loss of 

 our visible means of sustenance. Such drawbacks as this are sure to 

 come from time to time in any business. Temporary inconvenience,, 

 embarrassment, hardship or sometimes even want are likely to follow. 

 For a time it is impossible to rejoice when privation occurs. It is 

 equally legitimate, however, for us to realize that sometimes it is out 

 of the greatest difficulties that better things are brought about. Some 

 of the most serious disasters that have befallen the horticulturist have 

 been the means through which future benents have arisen. 



For years Peter Gideon planted apple seeds in the northwest,, 

 beyond the range of hardiness of any then known varieties. Thou- 

 sands of apple trees were started from these seeds, only to die upon 

 the approach of severe winters. He persisted, however, and after 

 having grown trees from more than a bushel of apple seeds, all of 

 which died in the struggle with a severe climate, he finally produced 

 one tree which lived, bore fruit and has been handed down to us as 

 the Wealthy apple. This variety is capable of being grown in very 

 severe climates and mav be said to have removed the limits of com- 

 mercial apple growing several hundred miles farther to the northwest. 

 His persistent planting of trees in a climate where only discourage- 

 ment at first came to reward him is what made his final triumph 

 great. 



The tomato affords perhaps a more concrete example than the 

 apple of the evolution of cultivated plant forms adapted to special 

 purposes and locations. Almost within the memory of men now 

 living it has been brought from a comparatively unimportant wild 



