136 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



ton.; all these are interesting, but who thinks of Missouri as a 

 cotton-growing State? 



The uses of cotton enter so closely into our daily lives that 

 many of us are apt to underestimate it. The entire civilized world 

 today wears clothing made of cotton, and thrice fortunate is that 

 land which will produce this greatest of commercial crops. 



Cotton, is the major farm product of no less than eight of the 

 states of this Union, and ranks second in importance in four or 

 five others. In Missouri the cotton crop is of no mean importance. 

 Three counties in 1911 produced nearly eighty thousand bales, 

 while the entire crop of the State that year was in the neighbor- 

 hood of a hundred thousand bales. The total value of the crop to 

 Missouri farmers was about five millions of dollars. Does such a 

 showing indicate that Missouri cannot grow cotton successfully? 

 We are more vitally interested in the growth of the fleecy staple 

 than, we are at first willing to admit. No, the growing of cotton 

 in Missouri is not general; it is more nearly localized than any 

 other of our numerous crops. Corn and wheat, oats and hay — 

 these crops alone out-value cotton as Missouri farm products, and 

 they are grown in, all of the 114 counties, as are also potatoes and 

 the various fruits and berries, but only a few of the southeast 

 counties produce cotton. Away off down yonder in the southeast 

 corner, which some of you good people would apparently like to for- 

 get, is still a part of Missouri. You never forget us about election 

 time. The tax collector never passes us by ; he reaps a rich reward 

 in this most fertile and climatically favored district. I said you 

 would like to forget us, but I do not mean that; it is not just that 

 way. But let me tell you an experience I had during the State 

 Fair last October. State Superintendent Evans was showing me 

 the various exhibits in the educational department. All of them 

 were good, some of them exceptionally so, and our worthy Superin- 

 tendent of Schools was justly proud of the work being done in the 

 schools of the State. We were inspecting one exhibit of high 

 school work in which several maps of Missouri were on display. 

 He called my attention to the excellence of this work. At first 

 glance I recognized only one as a map of Missouri, and told him 

 that I would not consider the others at all. Mr. Evans appeared 

 somewhat surprised and asked why I would not recognize the 

 other maps. In reply, I asked him that if he were drawing the 

 picture of a mule would he cut off the head and place it in the far 

 corner of the sheet of paper on which he was making the drawing. 



