SUMMER MEETING AT BROOKFIELD. 129 



Imagine, over the rocks of the ocean beds, a rolling prairie built 

 of the loess with a varying - mixture of the drift, and on its surface a 

 soil two to three feet deep made from the decaying vegetation of un- 

 measured centuries. That imagining is an existing reality on the up- 

 land prairie of Holt county, one of the best and fairest tracts of farm- 

 ing land in all the West. 



THE GREAT MISSOURI BOTTOM 



Is still in process of construction. The material is being brought from 

 the same sources and is of very much the same character as the loess 

 of the hills, only that what is now coming down in this later stage of 

 the process contains less of volcanic ash and more of sand than did 

 the earlier washings, and the now greater growth of vegetation above 

 sends down more vegetable matter than came in the long ago. The 

 soil of the bottom is good enough, be it sandy or gumbo, to grow any- 

 thing. I believe the time is not a generation distant when the system 

 of reservoirs that is to be at and near the head waters of the streams 

 that make the Missouri river, and the irrigation that will take place, 

 will so control the volume of water in the Missouri that overflow will 

 seldom, perhaps never come. What will then be the value of the 3,000 

 square miles of the great Missouri bottom that lie inside of our State? 



THE SOIL OF THE NODAWAY BOTTOM 



Has been brought from the prairies of Iowa, and from such part of 

 Missouri as is drained by the Nodaway river. A compound of loess 

 and glacier products and humus, it could but be, as many years culti- 

 vation has proved it to be, very productive. It sometimes overflows, 

 but when the freshet has gone, the soil is all there and a little more has 

 been added. 



From the level of our bottom lands to the tops of our highest hills 

 the difference in altitude is nearly 300 feet. This gives us every possible 

 slope and exposure, and, with the varying make-up of our soil, much 

 opportunity for choice as to where this or that vegetable or fruit or 

 variety of fruit shall be planted. Nowhere else on the continent are 

 apples and peaches so beautifully colored as among the hills of our 

 peculiar formation in Missouri. No country produces a greater variety 

 of vegetables. No soil puts into its products finer texture or higher 

 flavor. 



The extreme mechanical fineness of our soil and its peculiar chem- 

 ical character make it one of the best, perhaps the very best, to stand 

 drouth. The year 1885 was very dry ; 1886 was still drier ; but the 



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