A FEW ITEMS FOR SETTLERS. 485 



ALONG THE LINE OF THE 'FRISCO. 



FRUIT INTERESTS IN SOUTH MISSOURI. 



In order to have extensive, successful and profitable fruit growing, 

 there must exist favorable conditions in soil, altitude, temperature, etc., 

 also good facilities tor transportation to a reliable market. South Missouri 

 has all this. Nature has given the first, and the latter is furnished by the 

 'Frisco and K. C, S. & M. R. R. This road, from K. C, the great dis- 

 tributing point for all northern and western markets, leaves the coal fields 

 of Kansas at Arcadia, runs with an "up grade" from Lamar, in Barton 

 County, through Dade and Greene to Springfield, the summit of the 

 Ozark range, thence east to south across Greene, Webster, Wright, 

 Texas, Howell and Oregon, leaving the state of Missouri at or near 

 Thayer and Mam. Springs and on to Memphis and thence south to the 

 Gulf States. These counties and adjoining lands on either side consti 

 tute a wonderful plateau on top of the Ozark Mountains, from the 

 Kansas line, well on toward the Missouri river. About one-half of 

 Barton, Dade and Greene, is smooth, beautiful prairie, with deep, pro- 

 ductive soil, and devoted to agriculture mainly. The apple is being 

 liberally planted and coming into successful fruiting in Barton and 

 Dade. In Greene there are thousands of acres of full bearing orchards 

 from which large crops of excellent fruit are shipped out west and south 

 annually. The utility and profits of the enterprise have been so well 

 and satisfactorily tested here that hundreds of acres are being annually 

 planted in all the country near Springfield, on and near the railroads — 

 two trunks and their branches. 



Southeast of Springfield these lands arc nearly all timbered, which 

 is better, 



Webster and Wright, with Douglass and Christian joining on their 

 south, and Texas on the northeast, abound in cheap timbered lands ad- 

 mirably adapted to fruitgrowing, which is apparent to every well posted 

 • horticulturist who has had a look even from the car window. But 



