164 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



thus the display of her fruit resources is quite a formidable one, com- 

 ing from such confined limits. In the northen portion of the State,, 

 however, orchards and berry patches would prove as much of a novelty 

 ae cotton fields. 



Missouri's fruit shipping- points are spread over the State, and this 

 wide distribution of orchards and small fruits leads to the securing of 

 a diversity of markets. There is no Western State having access to* 

 more paying markets. An outsider would naturally conclude St. Louis 

 was the market for a majority of the products of the State, but quite 

 the reverse is true. Hundreds of shippers find Nebraska, Colorado,. 

 Texas, Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota the best markets. 

 Kansas City is now a, great distributing center, and consumes every- 

 thing grown in the western part of the State, and draws heavily on 

 other portions of the State for her needed supplies. Apple buyers- 

 from Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, Buffalo and other leading eastern 

 markets traverse the State usually every other year, the off season 

 East, for their supplies. It may seem strange, yet it is true, that apples,, 

 for instance, net the Missouri grower a higher price than the New 

 Yorker gets for his. A full crop in New York means $1.25 to $1.50 

 per barrel for the best fruit packed on the cars. Better figures are ob- 

 tained for the best fruit in this State, regardless of the crop here or 

 elewhere. Missouri can place her fruits in the Eastern markets almost 

 as cheaply as Michigan, Indiana or Ohio, and far cheaper in the North- 

 ern and Southern States, which usually embrace the best markets. 

 Therefore in her relation to markets, a most important feature, she is 

 admirably situated, for while having access to all points she is not 

 specially dependent on any of them. 



To review the field at length, or cover so important a subject in 

 one article of this kind, I will not attempt, nor can I more than refer 

 to a few of the counties where the business is conducted extensively. 



St. Louis county has 1,500 acres in strawberries, usually a heavy 

 yield, together with a large apple, pear, peach, plum and cherry crop, 

 all of which come to this market, and it may be added that about the 

 time the local growers are ready for market, heavy shipments are com- 

 ing from Southern Illinois, Kentucky, Southeast Missouri, Arkansas 

 and Western Tennessee, which induces the remainder of the State to 

 find more remunerative markets elsewhere. 



At least twelve fine fruitgrowing counties, washed by the Missouri 

 river, which passes through the heart of the State, find that great 

 highway a cheap route to many good markets from the far north to the 

 gulf, and the state is now so well equipped with railroads that nearly 

 every shipping point on the river is touched by one or more roads. 



