SUMMER MEETING AT BROOKFIELD. 87 



thousands of car loads of melons shipped from that one county. Only- 

 one man writes me that there will be shipped from a few stations near 

 him from 3,500 to 4,500 car loads (all of one variety, Kolb Gem) of 

 melons this year, and this is only a part of what will come from that 

 Southeast Missouri which we look upon as a dreary, swampy country. 



Then take the Missouri river points in shipping apples last fall, 

 where we saw from many of our stations thousands of barrels of 

 them sent in all directions. Many a little county sends out as many 

 barrels of apples as it used to take to supply the Chicago market. 

 Why, dear friends, other States may boast of their fruit lands (and 

 they have them) — Western New York, a wonderful fruit district ; 

 Northern Ohio, another, a step or two west ; the eastern border of Lake 

 Michigan, another still, but of limited area ; Southern Illinois, still an- 

 ther wonderful strawberry, small fruit, peach and apple area — so much 

 so that thousands of car loads are sent to Chicago every year. A little 

 farther west and northwest Arkansas is peculiarly adapted to fruit 

 growing, as their fruits do show. 



But for all the3e limited areas, when we come to Missouri we find 

 tens of acres where there we see one, hundreds where there are tens, 

 and thousands where others claim hundreds of acres of land adapted 

 to fruit growing. We have all over our State an abundance of fruit 

 lands which need only some one to go forward and possess them. 



Do you think that the Ozark region of Arkansas is a grand apple 

 country? Why we have thousands of acres of the same in Missouri, 

 and ten times thb amount Arkansas has. 



Do you think Eastern Kansas has some fine fruit lands ? Well, 

 Missouri has a hundred times the same amount of good fruit lands; 

 and so all around us. I tell you, I speak the truth in soberness, when 

 I say that there is no State in the Union which possesses so many 

 acres of fine fruit lands as does Missouri. 



Besides this, look at our other products : our stock— horses, mules, 

 cattle, sheep; our agricultural resources— corn, hay, wheat, oats; our 

 mineral deposits— iron, zinc, lead, copper, coal, stone ; our springs and 

 rivers, well watered; our climate, mild and temperate; our rain-fall 

 abundant for all purposes. 



Dare you to come here and tell our people to go west J ? Dare you 

 advise a change in our location? Nay ! rather send abroad" the news 

 to all the land, come up and help us possess the land, and verily it shall 

 blossom as the rose ; beauty and abundance shall be on every hand to 

 delight the eye and please the taste. 



While I dislike to form comparisons, yet it will not be amiss for 

 me to read one of the reports from a friend of mine out in Western 



