500 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



From Mound City, twenty-six car loads. 



From Bigclow, eight car loads. 



From Corning, nine car loads. 



Nodaway Station, in 1888, sent away thirty car loads of apples, a 

 large share of which were grown in Holt County, but most of them, prob- 

 ably, in Andrew County. 



It Holt County, the interest in fruit growing, especially in the rais- 

 ing of apples, is rapidly on the increase. The county is not so famous 

 for the very large size of any of its orchards, as for the number and the 

 quality of its orchards of smaller size. Perhaps the largest orchard in 

 Holt covers not more than sixty acres ; but many men have planted 

 each from 500 to 3,000 trees, and are giving them improved care and 

 cultivation. Some of the best orchards on upland have brought their 

 owners a net profit of $100 per acre per year for the last three years, 

 while a number of orchards on bottom lands are doing equally as well. 

 Plenty of choice fruit land all along the range of hill country at five to 

 ten dollars per acre for unimproved, and fifteen to thirty-five dollars for 

 improved farms — mostly of forty or eighty acres each. Many places 

 among the hills present beautiful and picturesque scenery. Holt County 

 has had a live, wide-awake horticultural society for the last ten years, 

 and its work is telling on the orchards, the grounds, and the homes of its 

 people. There is better and better care and cultivation of all these. 



Atchison, the northwestern county of the state, has a number of 

 railway stations from which considerable quantities of fine apples are 

 shipped by the car load. The price of fruit land varies from ten to 

 thirty dollars per acre. 



Brookfield, Mo., March 4, 1889. 

 Mr. N. F. Miirray: 



Dear Sir : — I have been doing my best to answer your kind letter 

 of Feb. 5. 



There are eleven railroad stations in this county, but I have not got 

 the accounts from but a few of them, yet people are careless about mat- 

 ters of that kind, but I hope they will get a good waking-up at our meet- 

 ing in June. Our part of Missouri is not so much advanced in fruit- 

 growing as others near large cities. There is no very extensive fruit 



