210 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



yearlings; set twenty-four feet apart; have had careful pruning, though 

 not excessive; all superfluous limbs and water sprouts have been rubbed 

 off or cut off twice each year. The land was cropped regularly the three 

 first years, then seeded down, and pasture for hogs since that time. Now 

 for financial results : There has been five crops of apples taken from 

 this orchard, and Mr, Beckner has kept a correct account of his mer- 

 chantable fruit, and has to the credit of each tree the sum of $7.50 per 

 tree, besides the culls and second quality for drying and making cider. 

 At seventy trees per acre it is easy to see what kind of a profit there is 

 in orcharding in Southwest Missouri, or I may say in any part of Mis- 

 souri, where you have the same soil and climate that we are blessed 

 with. 



Mr. Beckner, while a man of nearly sixty years of age, is preparing 

 to put out about 2000 Ben Davis this coming spring, having a strong 

 faith in the future prospects of fruit growing on the Ozarks, and right 

 here I want to make a statement that affects to-day and will affect for 

 all time to come unless changed. (This may come up under another 

 head and in some other way, but I have been there and I know whereof 

 I speak.) After my travels over the country six years ago and after hav- 

 ing seen and examined the fruits and other crops of Missouri, I made up 

 my mind that I would take a car load of apples to York State with me, 

 and, in doing this, I could then fully determine the keeping quality as 

 well as the general quality of the fruit. I bargained for a car of fruit 

 that was all to be hand-picked, barreled and put in good shape in the 

 orchard. I paid for my fruit and left directions for shipment, and I left 

 for my native state. In about three weeks car arrived at Buffalo, N. Y., 

 and I had arranged to place from two to six barrels of fruit in the hands 

 of different families in the City of Buffalo. When car arrived I went to 

 see it and began examination of fruit. What did I find.' J\\\ fruit that 

 had been properly field-packed in orchard was in splendid condition, but 

 the fruit that had been drawn loose in wagons — about thirty per cent — 

 was fully twenty-five per cent rotted or spoiled, and result was a serious 

 loss out of the experiment yet, I think, it w ill prove a good investment 

 in the long run, as I have fought this ruinous and slovenly way of hand- 

 ling our fruit ever since I located in Missouri, and if we want to hold 

 up the reputation of our fruits in the markets of the world, we have got 

 to sit down on this miserable practice of handling our fruits, and I feel 

 sometimes that a law should be passed that would enable a true horti- 

 culturist to have a man arrested that was caught drawing first-class 

 apples to market in a lumber wagon loose. And while on this most im- 

 portant point I hope this body, representing, as it does, one of the great- 



