WINTER MEETING. 227 



best quality, while for all kinds of fruit-growing it is unexcelled. The 

 towns and cities have all the modern improvements, such as water- 

 works, electric lights, churches, schools and colleges. As to intelli- 

 gence the people will compare favorably with those of any other part 

 of the State. 



With all these advantages offered by South Missouri, it seems 

 strange to me to see men in many places renting land at three and four 

 dollars per acre to farm. I know of many such now selling their corn 

 at fifteen and twenty cents, and in some instances it will take the crop 

 to pay the rent, leaving nothing for the farmer to live on. How much 

 better it would be to own a home in South Missouri, if only forty 

 acres, and grow fruit, for which a large tract is not required. It 

 takes a capitalist to improve and carry on a large plantation like the 

 Olden farm, but a man of fair intelligence and industry can, with a very 

 small amount of money, improve a small place, make a comfortable 

 home, and not only have the necessaries of life, but such luxuries as 

 no one but a fruit-grower may know. 



N. F. Murray, Oregon, Holt County, Mo. 



Report of Secretary L. A. Goodman. 



As the years go on we should learn more and more what to do and 

 liow to do it, but how few of us can prove that this is true of ourselves. 

 The more we learn of all these things about the growth of trees and 

 plants the more we stand in awe at the vast amount we know nothing 

 of. Today we think we have some rule to follow, or some fact to 

 guide us, when only tomorrow we will find the whole foundation 

 knocked from under us. Today we see all sunshine before us and to- 

 morrow clouds cover the sky. Today we are worrying over the poor 

 prospects of a crop and tomorrow we find these dispersed and bright 

 hopes shining out. Today we find a bounteous crop in plain view, but 

 tomorrow we find it destroyed by a sudden storm or the crop so plenty 

 that it seems hardly worth the marketing. We grumble and worry 

 and find fault with all about us when we know not what we say or do. 



When will we learn that two' things are sure, disappointment and 

 death? We think we know our success only in that we succeed, but 

 such is not the case. Oftimes our success is in what seemes to us 

 failure. We get too eager and too uneasy ; we do not wait for things 

 to take their course ; we want to push matters along and so too often 

 push them over the precipice into the sea. If we Americans would or 

 could learn to be patient in our business, and not in too much of a 



