WINTER MEETING. 229 



Because there are a hundred people who eat fruit now where one did 

 twenty years ago, and these seasons of cheap fruit are a blessing in 

 disguise to all our fruit-growers since they develop a liking for fruits 

 that will take no refusal. Thousands will have a taste of fruit this 

 year that have never had it before, and they will call for it ever after 

 when not too expensive. From the first of the strawberries, all the 

 way through the season there has been an abundance of fruit seldom 

 seen even in this productive West, and although the prices have ruled 

 low yet there is such a demand that we shall not see the end and the 

 taste acquired will be our future market. 



The strawberiy crop of the State was worth a half million dollars. 

 The raspberry and blackberry crop a quarter million each. The grape 

 crop another million, peaches, $250,000, cherries and plums, $100,000 

 each, and other fruits another hundred thousand, besides and above 

 the apple crop, worth a cool $10,000,000, making the fruit of the State 

 worth more than $12,000,000, this year of hard times, fault-finding and 

 uneasiness. 



We complain the most when we have the most to do. We fail to 

 succeed when we let too many idle moments pass by. No farmer has 

 any right to be idle or lazy. If the farmer or fruit-grower will keep 

 busy he will not fail of success in Missouri. If all the idle moments 

 spent by our people at the stores, at the depots, in the saloons or on 

 the streets could be put to producing something for them to eat and 

 wear there would be no poor people in our land. If there could be 

 added to this all the money spent for whisky and tobacco they could 

 have homes also. No energetic young man with good health need go 

 without a home as long as land can be had for $5 per acre where crops 

 never fail, in this the State of all States, Missouri. 



May I mention a mistake of our fruit men for their consideration ? 

 A great number wrote me in September that they would have one, 

 three, five, ten thousand bushels of apples and they did not know 

 what they were to do with them. At the last moment when every- 

 thing should have been in readiness, it dawned upon them that they 

 had no way to handle their fruit. What would they think of a mer- 

 chant, or a grainman, or a stock-raiser, or a manufacturer who would 

 let their products go to waste because they had not prepared to care 

 for it ! Make you a cellar or other place to store your fruits. 



A fruit cellar for the storage of apples for the winter seems a ne- 

 cessity and a growing demand is made for such a place. An excava- 

 tion into the side of a hill, making it as wide and deep as the necessities 

 demand, is the best storage place for apples for the winter. The en- 

 trance to this cave must be strong and substantial, with logs for the 



