SUMMER MEETING AT BROOKFIELD. 121 



"" I feel confident that the experience of many farmers will confirm the 

 statement that on clean ground, where the suppression of weeds does 

 not figure, the corn that has been cultivated as soon as possible after 

 every packing rain as practicable, has given the best results." 



ORCHARDING IX MISSOURI* 



PROF. J. W. CLARK. 



In presenting the subject of fruit here to-day, I have chosen the 

 ■commercial side of the question, for the reason that, as a rule, farmers 

 do not realize anything near what they would for their fruit if it was 

 grown and handled as it should be. There is a right and a wrong way 

 to handle and put up fruit, and the sooner every owner of an orchard 

 realizes and practices it, the sooner will he find fruit-growing profitable. 



Missouri, or some parts of it, seems to have been especially 

 designed by nature for the cultivation of fruits ; and that she can grow 

 as fine fruit as can be grown by any other State in the Union has been 

 proven whenever it has been made to compete with that of other States. 



The fruit interests of the State are of vital importance to her pros- 

 perity, and they are becoming more so every year. 



The value of her orchard products in 1879 was nearly two millions 

 of dollars, $1,812,873. Many of you have visited the fruit districts of 

 the East, and have seen the train loads of peaches shipped daily to the 

 northern markets from the peach orchards of the peninsula during the 

 picking season, and also seen the immense quantities of apples and 

 other fruits grown in western New York. Now these are what are 

 called the older States, and from our childhood we have been taught 

 to look upon them as the great fruit centers of the country; but the 

 oensus returns of '79 give the entire orchard products of Maryland at 

 $1,563,188, New Jersey, $860,090, and Delaware $846,692 ; but who, in 

 '79, even thought of calling Missouri a fruit center, notwithstanding her 

 fruit product was greater than that of Maryland, and also more than 

 the combined orchard products of both New Jersey and Delaware. 



A full fruit crop of this State is now about $10,000,000, five times 

 what it was ten years ago. Missouri is making rapid advancement in 



*An address by Prof. Clark at the annual meeting of the State Board of Agii- 

 culture, Columbia, Mo , November, 1S89. 



