SUMMER MEETING. 117 



of the best and most profitable crops of berries that we have had in 

 many years. 



ORCHARDING 



Is a great big question. It is a word that has not been known in its 

 full meaning until of late years, and especially so in the West. Not 

 many years since if you had told a person that yon were going into the 

 work of "Orcharding" he would hardl.^ have known what you meant. 

 Today we have hundreds of men who are " Orcharding " in the truest 

 and fullest sense of the word. Years ago a person would have been 

 thought wild who would plant an orchard of 100 acres. Today we 

 find them by the hundreds over our Western country and many another 

 who is planting 300 acres, 400 acres, or perhaps even 1,000 acres. Now 

 we are no more astonished when we hear of some one planting two or 

 three or more hundred acres of apple or peach orchards. The man 

 now seems to go into it as a sort of business just as any other busi- 

 ness man goes into his business. 



This matter of " Orcharding " has also become a favorite and sure 

 plan for the investment of a few hundred or thousands of dollars for 

 safe keeping and sure returns. 



No person can make a mistake in purchasing the cheap lands in 

 Missouri all along our creeks, streams or rivers, where they are now 

 mostly covered with a forest growth. Take these lands and chop, 

 clear, burn off the brush or timber and plant to orchard trees. No 

 person need fear that the cheap lands of Missouri will ever be any less 

 in price than at this very time. Careful selection of some of these 

 lands for future orchards and prepared in the proper manner for or- 

 chard growing will bring their owners two, three, five times the money 

 spent on them if it be done in a legitimate manner and planted with 

 the proper varieties. These cheap lands will be worth in a few years 

 threefold the purchase price, and if planted in orchards will pay a won- 

 derfully big per cent on the investment. 



"Orcharding" means in its broadest sense the growing of apple 

 orchards, pear orchards, peach, plum or cherry orchards in such quan- 

 tities as to make it a business for the person who undertakes it. The 

 orchardist should be a grower of all these fruits, so that he can supply 

 his customers with what they want and when they want it. He will 

 have a suflBcient quantity of apples so that he can supply firm with a 

 lot of apples every week during the winter, and, if possible, far into 

 spring. 



APPLE ORCHARDING 



Means then the growing of quantities of apples for the wholesale buyer, 

 or the dealer, or the grocer, or the family, or all combined. He wants 



