256 State Horticultural Society, 



mon good of a country which has done so much for him. This 

 State we love so well — this Missouri, with which we can do so much 

 if we will — we have known her for years ; she is our own, and will 

 be in the ages to come. I loved her when I played upon the grass, 

 myself greener than the grass, and through all stages of life have 

 loved her more and more, and perhaps tomorrow we may lie down 

 in her bosom. She will not forget us even then. She will deck 

 our graves with flowers and drop dews from Heaven upon it. Shall 

 we not give tomorrow and many tomorrows to all those things 

 that stands for horticulture of the heart, that means so much more 

 then horticulture of the fields? 



MISSOURI FRUITS. 



The Missouri apple crop is coming to market. It will be the- 

 largest crop known in the State's history. In 1901, the year 

 known in State history as "the dry year," not because of the lid, 

 but because of lack of rain, the percentage of the apple crop was 

 larger than it has been in 1906. But the orchard acreage was not 

 so large in 1901 as now. Missouri leads the United States in num- 

 ber of apple trees. L. A. Goodman of Kansas City, for years Sec- 

 retary of the Missouri Horticultural Society, states that there are 

 now 25,000,000 apple trees in Missouri. This largely exceeds the 

 number of any other state. New York, oldest apple-growing re- 

 gion in America, is second; Illinois third and Michigan fourth in 

 acreage of apple orchards. 



The apple is the royal fruit. There is but one royal flower, 

 the rose ; but one royal game, chess ; but one royal exercise, walk- 

 ing, and but one royal fruit, the apple. Of the fruit orchards in 

 Missouri over one-half are apple orchards. The value of the apple 

 product exceeds the amount of all other fruits in the State. This 

 value is constantly increasing. More orchards are being planted. 

 The older orchards are bearing in larger quantities. More atten- 

 tion is being paid to apple growing. Though Missouri is the center 

 of the strawberry region of the United States, though the Missouri 

 peach is large, luscious and numerous, though vineyards of wine 

 trees — as the Arabs call the grapes — adorn the hillsides, yet the ap- 

 ple is king. Missouri is, indeed, the land of the big red apple. 

 When the ill-fated Morehouse, candidate for governor against 

 Francis, first used "the land of the big red apple" as descriptive of 

 South Missouri, he was ridiculed and caricatured. Had the tall, 

 broad-shouldered statesman from Nodaway lived until now, he 



