26 

 Fruit growing at this early time was only 



IN ITS INFANCY, 



and the mistakes were more numerous at first than the suc- 

 cesses. Varieties brought from the North proved valueless, 

 and years were often devoted to the culture of trees, to result 

 only in disappointment when the period of fruitage arrived. 

 Gradually, however, experience has brought wisdom, and to- 

 day the intelligent fruit or vegetable grower of Southern 

 Illinois plants with as much confidence and gathers with as 

 much certainty, the accident of season excepted, as though his 

 business was an exact science and governed by inexorable 

 rules. 



Since the war great mills have sprung up which make a 

 market for the native forest trees, and immense beds of coal 

 are found under almost this entire section, giving occupation 

 to a large population, and also creating a home demand for 

 fruit. New railways have also opened up new fields, and prac- 

 tically there is no portion of Southern Illinois that does not 

 possess an easy and direct outlet to market. 



THE SUNNY SKIES 



of this section remind one of Italy, which lies exactly in the 

 same degrees of latitude, and have often caused it to be called 

 the "Italy of America." Many fruits and vegetables which 

 grow only in a tropical clime, here arrive at perfection. Sweet 

 potatoes grown here equal those grown in Jersey in quality, 

 while the list of other vegetables grown to perfection would 

 fill a catalogue. Nowhere in the world are there larger fields 

 of strawberries, and nowhere do they reach a higher degree of 

 perfection than on the sun-kissed hills and prairies of Southern 

 Illinois. Although the extension of railways southward has 

 removed, to a certain extent, the business of supplying early 

 fruits and vegetables from Illinois to states further south, the 

 fact yet remains that for supplying the market with great 

 quantities of fruit and vegetables at prices which the masses 

 can afford to pay, Southern Illinois is the main reliance of the 

 entire Northwest. 



