SUMMEE MEETING. 17 



everything. And now, to have things harmonize, we should have the 

 best meeting our Society has held in all the 40 years of its existence. 



In order to m«ke it such we cordially invite all present to come 

 and bring their friends to all the sessions of our three-days' meeting, 

 encourage the fruit-growers by your presence, and help to make this 

 meeting one long to be remembered for its good work and lasting in- 

 fluence. 



To speak at length of our great State in general would only be to 

 enlarge on what I have already said about the "Queen City of the 

 Southwest;'' the best State in the Union, where we grow the best 

 fruit in the world, so proven by the numerous awards and diplomas in 

 our possession. Among our three million intelligent people who know 

 how to live well, and who, by their experience know the beneficial ef- 

 fect to health in the free use of good fruit, we find the best home mar- 

 ket for our fruit of any state in the Union. They not only buy a large 

 part of the product of our own orchards, but annually pay out hun- 

 dreds of thousands of dollars for grapes, pears and other fruits from 

 New York, Ohio and California, all of which might and ought to be 

 grown within our own borders, making not only a good home market, 

 but our full share of the markets of other states and foreign countries, 

 and the demand for Missouri fruit increasing as the years go by. With- 

 out rich, virgin soil, cheap land and superior natural advantages, no 

 one may even guess to what proportions the fruit industry will grow 

 to be in Missouri in the years to come. 



There is no good and valid reason why Springfield may not be- 

 come a second Rochester and one of the greatest fruit centers in the 

 west. The fruit product of our State now amounts to from ten to 

 twenty-five million dollars annually, and is destined in a few years to 

 at least double this amount. 



While much is due to individual effort in building up this great 

 industry, no intelligent person who will take the trouble to review the 

 fruit industry of Missouri, will fail to see that the State Horticultural 

 Society has been the potent factor in developing the fruit industry of 

 the State ; and has already by the improvement of wild lands, the in- 

 creased wealth from the sale of fruit and by giving employment to the 

 laboring class, returned many fold to the State and her people for all 

 the small appropriations made on her behalf. As an instance of what 

 is being done, we poiui with pride to the strawberry fields of Sarcoxie, 

 where recently ten thousand pickers found employment; and to our 

 numerous orchards, where in the coming fall an army of one hundred 



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