Winter Meeting. 261 



among the number. There has been no trust formed among men 

 who buy apples, and the sellers are too widely scattered and have 

 too many conflicting interests to combine. Here and there have 

 been organized county and district associations, which have been 

 helpful in the sale of apples more along lines of information than 

 any other. Horticultural education has stimulated apple growing. 

 The Missouri Horticultural Society has had a long and honorable 

 career of usefulness. The Missouri Agricultural College has a 

 well-manned and well-equipped chair of horticulture. The Mis- 

 souri Botanical Garden at St. Louis, better known as Shaw's Gar- 

 den, has given impetus to scientific research. The Fruit Experi- 

 ment Station at Mountain Grove, though young in years, is doing 

 good work. 



DRAWBACKS OF THE BUSINESS. 



Apple growing in Missouri has its drawbacks. There are 

 borers and bitter rot, and rabbits and scab and insects that injure 

 the trees. Science is doing much, however, by suggestion of spray- 

 ing and other care, to make the drawbacks of less consequence. 

 It requires intelligence, love and patience to grow apples. This is 

 the opinion of every careful student of orcharding. Intelligsnce, 

 of course, for the old way of planting a tree, leaving it alone, and 

 returning years afterward to pick a crop, is long out of date. Love 

 certainlj^ because he who loves his calling makes a larger success 

 than he who merely is engaged in it to make a living. Patience, as- 

 suredly, because it takes waiting years between the planting of the 

 trees and the gathering of the harvest. Wheat and corn and oats 

 are matters of a single season, but the growing of the apple requires 

 five years at the least, and sometimes other years added to the 

 first five. Possibly this last requirement of patience, added to the 

 necessary investment of capital, makes less liable the danger of 

 overproduction of Missouri apples. 



Missouri land for apple growing can be bought at various 

 prices, some less valuable, away from market and undeveloped 

 as low as $10 per acre, some highly developed, close to market and 

 with the best surroundings, will sell as high as $100 per acre. Both 

 prices, of course, are for the land before the trees have been 

 planted. Thirty to forty dollars an acre is not an uncommon price 

 for Missouri land suitable for orcharding. It costs 10 cents to 15 

 cents a tree to purchase and set out the apple trees. Then follows 

 care and cultivation — and the waiting time. A well-set orchard 

 in good bearing condition and with excellent transportation facili- 

 ties has sold for $200 and upward an acre. 



