16 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



We are thankful to the Greene County Horticultural Society for 

 the invitation to meet with you at this time, and we congratulate your 

 good people of Springfield and of Greene county that you have a 

 strong local society doing such earnest, noble work to develop the 

 fruit industry in your midst. 



Every city of any considerable size, in order to grow and prosper, 

 must have one or more leading industries to give employment to its 

 laborers. Located as yon are, on the summit of the Ozarks, where 

 you have the pure mountain air, free from malaria, surrounded with 

 mammoth springs of pure crystal water, from which your city takes 

 its name, with a rich soil full of iron and other minerals, which seems 

 to have been especially endowed by the Creator for growing the best 

 of everything, with a city of 60,000 inhabitants, justly entitled to the 

 beautiful name you have won, " Queen City of the Southwest," where 

 you have the best of schools, colleges, churches and all the modern 

 improvements of a great city, in the center of a great fruit section, 

 where you have the best of orchards, vineyards and berry plantations, 

 and that which it takes to comprehend and make the best of all these 

 things, the most intelligent, energetic and best of people ; with all of 

 these I am not at all surprised at the story I heard of an occuranee 

 which took place some time ago at one of your camp meetings in South 

 Missouri. At the close of an earnest appeal by the good parson to his 

 congregation to change their way of living, he took an old gentleman 

 by the hand and said: "Come, now, my brother, don't you want to 

 make a start for heaven tonight ? " The old man replied : " No ! No ! 

 No, sir!" "And why not, my dear brother ? Why not?" "Oh, well, 

 parson, I tell you what it is : South Missouri, the land of the big red 

 apple, strawberries and cream, is plenty good enough for me yet 

 awhile." On one of my former trips to your city I was kindly taken 

 in charge of by two of your worthy citizens for a trip to Percy cave, 

 which we found not so large, but more beautiful, than the Mammoth 

 cave of Kentucky. On our way out I noticed that all kinds of fruit 

 trees, grain, grass and vegetables grew luxuriantly right among the 

 surface rocks, the larger ones having been utilized in building stone 

 fences. But a few days ago I learned that fence-building was not the 

 only purpose for which the rock of Springfield is used. On going to 

 a dealer to buy some lime to use in spraying, I inquired the price. He 

 replied, "85 cents per barrel for Hannibal and 95 cents for Springfield, 

 which is the best and (quality considered) the cheapest in the market." 

 So it seems that in gathering at Springfield to hold this meeting, we 

 have come to the very fountain of all good things, and the best of 



