A FEW ITEMS FOR SETTLERS. 483 



cannot live here comfortably, and, in a comparatively, short time ac- 

 cumulate a competency, could not live or get ahead in any country — 

 does not deserve a living, and will find no congenial welcome here, 



But this country is pre-eminently the home for the stock -raiser and 

 the fruit-grower, and as I have already given some attention to the for- 

 mer, I will now say something of the latter. Fruit is not a. luxury. It 

 is a necessity. It is not for the farmer or rich alone, but for the poor of 

 the cities as well. California, New York and Michigan fruits are too ex- 

 pensive for the latter to use freely. What, then, is to be done.-* Seek, 

 in the heart of the Mississippi \'alley, a fruit belt capable of being de- 

 veloped into the great, great American orchard. You will find it here 

 in the Ozark fruit belt — a region so long and so strangely overlooked — 

 a region which, twenty years hence, will be the home of King Fruit in 

 the United States. Take your map and see the cordon of great markets 

 on all sides of it. It is within easy distance of Chicago, Cincinnati, 

 Louisville, New Orleans and scores of other cities of scarcely less impor- 

 tance. It is only a night's ride from Kansas City, St. Louis and Mem- 

 phis, in other words, within reach of 30,000,000 people. But let me submit 

 other testimony than my own. "Your soil (the Ozark fruit belt is re- 

 ferred to) produces smoother and larger fruit than New York or Michi- 

 gan," says Mr. Louis Erb, a well known commission merchant of Mem- 

 phis, Tenn. "The flavor of Missouri fruits will make them favorites in 

 any market," awarding committee of the New Orleans exposition. "Mis- 

 souri orchards have fewer pests than California orchards," President J. 

 C. Evans, of the Missouri State Horticultural Society. Mr. Smeltzer, a 

 prominent commission merchant of Kansas City, writes under recent 

 date: "The finest peaches in this market this season are from Howell 

 county. I bar out no competitor, not even California, and I take into 

 the account size, appearance and flavor." Mr. L A. Goodman, the con- 

 servative and efficient secretary of the State Horticultural Society, wrote 

 as follows to Missouri friends from California, under date of February 

 20, 1888: " If I were going into the fruit business to-day I should go to 

 some good point in Missouri, where you can buy good farms at from $5, 

 $10 to $20 per acre, and plant 40 acres, 80 acres, 160 acres of apple trees 

 of desirable market varieties, such as Jonathan, Willow Twig, Ben Davis, 

 and make more money on the investment than you will to go to Califor- 

 nia and grow oranges. This is pretty strong, you say. Well, so it is, 

 but I believe it ; not that I am dissatisfied with California, for I am 

 charmed and delighted and should delight to live here if I could. But 

 what I want to say is that the opening for good, systematic apple or- 

 charding on our cheap lands of Missouri will pay a greater per cent, on 



