farmers' institutes. 255 



do in some sections. Our people may select any one of forty or more 

 industries from which they can make a living by only a reasonable effort. 

 One-half or more of our farmers are bank depositors, and having large, 

 rich, fertile farms stocked with fine herds, making money easily, and 

 living in luxury they give but little thought or concern to "side issues" 

 such as canning fruits and vegetables, and why should they? I have fre- 

 quentlv heard farmers at the close of a farmers' institute, where they 

 had listened for hours to able lectures on the profits of dairying, fruit- 

 growing, canning, etc., remark that such things might pay very well, but 

 thev did not care to bother with them and did not have to. And to all 

 such we say, very well, continue on and give close attention to your farm 

 crops and to your herds. In the very nature of things our broad acres 

 will in the future, as in the past, be largely devoted to farm crops and 

 live stock, and we are justly proud of the record we are making in agri- 

 culture ; but w'e have many sections in the vicinity of our large towns 

 and cities where labor is plenty, well suited to the growing and canning 

 of fruits and vegetables. We are doing a little, but might increase this 

 industry ten fold without detracting an iota from our general farm and 

 stock operations. 



Twenty years ago we began to urge and advocate the starting up of 

 canning plants in Holt county and twelve years ago a company was or- 

 ganized at Oregon, Missouri, and a plant put in at a cost of $8,000. It 

 has run every year and made money. One year the profits were over 

 $5,000, but the great benefit resulting from the plant is the fact that it 

 each year scatters twelve to fifteen thousand dollars in our little town 

 and the immediate vicinit}^, that goes largely into the pockets of the poorer 

 classes of our citizens and enables them to pay their living expenses. The 

 goods of this plant took the gold medal at the World's Columbian Ex4)o- 

 sition held at Chicago, for the best canned corn and tomatoes, and it has 

 never been any trouble to sell the entire pack at good prices. 



A few years ago another canning plant was put in at Forest City, 

 Holt county, Missouri, by Allen Brothers, of Omaha, at a cost of $7,000, 

 with a capacity of twenty thousand cans per day. They have paid out for 

 corn, fruit, vegetables and labor fifteen to twenty thousand dollars per 

 year, and have made good money, and now talk of enlarging the plant to 

 keep up with the increasing demand for their goods. These two plants 

 are only three miles apart and have beyond a doubt added much to the 

 wealth and prosperity of the respective communities where located, and 

 that, too, without detracting anything from other industries. Much of 

 the sweet corn and tomatoes are grown by people who have small acre- 

 ages and in young orchards, and no better crops can be grown than in 

 the young orchard, as the needed cultivation for the corn and tomatoes 



