Summer Meeting. 29 



that we might co-operate with the Kansas State Society in securing 

 distinguished men from a distance to help in both Societies. This 

 we did, and the Fruit Grower said, "We had the best meeting for 

 sometime." Your Mr. Sinnock kindly offered us our choice for a 

 winter or a summer meeting. We chose the latter, and here we 

 are; and from all indications we are going to be glad to come. 



Who north and east of Moberly have ever invited us? Who 

 in all these northeast counties are engaged in fruit raising to any 

 considerable extent? Mr. Charles Patterson set out about 30 acres 

 near Kirksville in 1878, and 80 acres more in 1884 and 1885. 

 These orchards are now in bad condition, if not worthless. Last 

 March his son wrote me that people in that locality are discour- 

 aged on the fruit question. Yet I am glad to state that in less than 

 a month from the date of that letter Secretary Goodman and my- 

 self assisted in organizing a "Farmers' and Fruit Growers' Society" 

 in Adair County. Along the line of the Wabash south to Macon, 

 quite a number of orchards from three to nine years old are found. 

 Possibly 800 acres are found south of Macon and around Excello, 

 400 to 500 about Cairo, and about 240 around Moberly, 90 per cent, 

 of which are now eight years old. Well, we were here nine years 

 ago, and I guess we did you no harm. If you of the northeast 

 want us to come more frequently, get ready, let us know, and we 

 will come with great alacrity, if "a previous engagement" does 

 not render us "indisposed." 



But you have little reason to complain, for neither our meet- 

 ings nor the good we do, are confined to the locality where we 

 meet. Our programs are not made for the benefit of those only 

 who attend any one meeting. Many of our members cannot get 

 from one quarter of the State to another every time we meet. The 

 distance, expense and time required are often too great. Those 

 who attend are generally only a small fraction of the thousands 

 we reach through our annual reports, to say nothing of our press 

 reports, addresses, and short articles in the horticultural papers. 

 Every program has something of interest to every section of the 

 State. Men and women from every quarter are asked to take 

 place on program, and choose their own subject if they would pre- 

 fer, and to name topics of particular interest to their localities, 

 which they would like to hear discussed. If, for any reason, they 

 cannot come, they are asked to write up their successes, failures, 

 difficulties, experiences, and even their theories, and send in their 

 papers. In securing these papers, not even originality, much less 

 original investigation, is asked for or expected. Experiment on 



