Annual Meeting at St. Josei^li. 255 



bearing prolific crops of choice fruit. Tlie leading varieties are 

 Raoul's Janet, Ben Davis and Wmesap, while nearly all other va- 

 rieties are represented. 



Pears are successful under favorable conditions ; when the 

 trees stand in cultivated ground, so situated that it is fairly drained, 

 they are thrifty and bear good crops. 



The Moreilo cherries are at home here. 



The conditions are not favorable to peaches in all i)arts of 

 G.entry county, though m some localities they grow vigorously, and 

 give a crop every two years or oftener. 



Plums of the native varieties are a never failing crop, though 

 the Wild Goose is more less damaged by the curculio, but the 

 Miner seems to withstand the "little turk" successfully and is 

 gaily laden with all the fruit the limbs can hold up, and often 

 with more. It is a pity that every farm does not have at least one 

 Miner plum, though the start is well made in Gentry. 



Of the small fruits, grapes succeed as well as one could wish, 

 and the same of the blackberry, and Black Cap raspberry ; the 

 Red raspberry withstands the winter only fairly well, unless cov-- 

 ered with earth, Hudson River fashion ; my Turner, Cuthberts 

 :ind others were so covered last winter and bore heavily this year, 

 though failing to do so after much milder winters ; it is so little 

 trouble to bend down the vines and throw a fcAV inches of earth 

 over them, that the wonder is that growers do not always practice 

 it. ■ 



Strawberries and currants grow vigorously and bear prolificly. 

 the latter doing better with a little shade — as say :i fence on the 

 west. 



And yet the fruit business here, as in all Northwest Missouri, 

 is but in its infancy. • Few, if any of ns can comjjrehend the vast 

 market for all the fruit that can be raised here, which is rapidly 

 opening up in that grand extent of country now being so speedily 

 settled at the northwest, a magnificent empire within itself, but 

 beyond the fruit line. 



We need in Gentry county as in all Northwest Missoui'i more 

 nurseries : farmers distrust agents, but buy trees where tiiey see 

 them for sale neal- their homes. Every coimty seat or railroad 

 crossing alfords an opportunity for a nursery business that should 

 be taken advantage of by some one, and here in Gentry we have 

 more than on.e such an opening. 



