34 Missouri State Horticultural Society. 



to succeed well so far as tried. There is less blight with the pear^ 

 here, so far as my observation extends than any other district of 

 country that I have visited. It may be said with propriety that 

 this is the home of the peach. The isothermal line extending from 

 east to west including the great peach belt of this Continent. 



In an address read before the State Society four years ago at 

 the annual meeting, after treating of the fruitfulness of the more 

 northern portions of the State, I then alluded to southern Missouri 

 in the following rather prophetic br visionary way. Yet time will 

 reveal the true story. 



"In the Ozark Mountainous ridges with deep ravines and bold 

 bluffs and gigantic hills, thus affording every variety of soil and 

 aspect for successful cultivation of fruits, aside from the great tim- 

 ber and mineral wealth of some heretofore neglected districts, 

 especially on the southern slopes of the Ozark mountains, are to 

 be found some of the finest peach lands in the world; lands rivaling 

 the famous Valley of Andalusia in the quantity, value and lus- 

 cionsness of its products. 



"These lands, too, at no far distant day, will be brought into 

 successful fruit culture and furnish our more northern markets 

 with fruits in advance of their local supplies. Several lines of rail- 

 roads are in contemplation and course of construction, that will 

 doubtless afford transportation ere commercial orchards can be grown 

 to successful bearing." 



I am happy to say since the penning of that quotation we have 

 in successful operation the Kansas City, Springfield & Memphis E. 

 R., passing through this district from north to south, together with 

 other roads and their branches, extending to most of the favorable 

 districts for growing fruits for shipment. 



Transportation as at present afforded, only awaits the efforts 

 of the Horticulturalists to seek out and develop the virtues of this 

 long cut off district of the state, so long deprived of commercial 

 relations with the outer world. 



The southern slope of the Ozark Mountains, are protected 

 on the north by these mountains from the severity of the wintry 

 blasts from the north and northwest winds, and by a succession of 

 mountain ranges in Arkansas on the southwest from the hot and 

 blighting winds of July and August. In addition to this protec- 

 tion from extreme climate changes, which in less favored localities 

 often destroy the fruit buds, beside damaging the wood, while the 

 more favorable locations are exempt from injury, thereby in- 

 suring more regular or certain crops of fruit. 



