190 State Hortwiiltural Society. 



SOME IMPRESSIONS OF FRUIT GROWING INDUSTRY IN 

 THE CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 



(By H. P. Gould, Assistant Pomologist United States Department Agriculture Washing- 

 ton, D. O.) 



Mr. President, Members of the Missouri State Horticultural So- 

 ciety : 



We are all seeking after knowledge; trying to find out what 

 is true and what is false, for the truth only is good. The annual 

 gatherings of this Society, or any similar society, should serve an 

 important place in sifting out the chaff and in winnowing the wheat, 

 so far as the true and the false in matters relating to fruit culture 

 are concerned. It is a time when the members stop and "take ac- 

 count of stock," so to speak, to see just where they stand. The 

 problems of the past season are fresh in their minds ; their mistakes 

 have not been forgotten, and to quite an extent their ideals for an- 

 other season are being formed. They are making new plans and 

 deciding what they will do and what they will not do next season. 

 So the meetings of a really live horticultural society ought to be a 

 kind of "clearing house" for pomological information. 



A short time ago I was looking over several of the reports of 

 this Society, for the purpose of finding out more definitely what the 

 deliberations had been in your recent meetings and the things which 

 had occupied your attention. I wanted to know what the "doctors" 

 had been prescribing, so to speak, and how they agreed as to the 

 treatment. 



When I realized how wide was the scope of the papers pub- 

 lished in those reports and the wisdom contained therein, I won- 

 dered if I could tell you anything new, or anything different from 

 what has been told you before, time and time again, and what you 

 already know, even better than I. I wondered if my effort to help 

 you would be entirely futile and unproductive of results. But there 

 is much in "the point of view" from which a thing is seen, and 

 sometimes one who is entirely ignorant of the thing itself can make 

 a suggestion which will solve the problem, simply because he sees 

 some small factor which had not been seen before. We sometimes 

 get into a routine way of thinking and doing, and so think and do 

 little outside the narow limits of our own accustomed way, and it 

 requires some one with a different point of view, some one who 

 goes outside the confines of our routine ways, to really see some 



