NORTH AMERICAN STATES 



NORTH AMERICAN STATES 2209 



The forest tree nursery business has changed con- 

 siderably in recent years. In the early days of the 

 "Timber Culture Act," when a settler might secure a 

 quarter-section of land for planting 10 acres of the 

 tract to trees, any sort of tree seedling could be profita- 

 bly grown. Those were the days of the enthusiasm for 

 the "hedge fence," and millions of osage orange seed- 

 lings were grown. Today the hedge is in disrepute. 

 The cost of careful maintenance is high in labor, and 

 the cost of neglect is high in injury to the fields, and 

 Kansas hedges are the victim of the stump-puller. 

 The catalpa is still set for posts and poles, and is on a 

 safer basis than in former years. The lesson of the 

 worthlessness of all species except Catalpa speciosa 

 was an expensive one. The fact that it is not well 

 adapted to high dry soil has been demonstrated, as has 

 its value for rich moist soil, and lands subject to over- 

 flow are being planted to catalpa and walnut. Many 

 settlers who planted cottonwood as roadside trees 

 thirty or more years ago are sawing lumber and finding 

 that the cottonwoods pay rent for the land. The 

 Kansas farmers are planting better trees than they did a 

 generation ago. The box elder, soft maple, and poplars 

 have given way to elms, hackberry, sycamore, oaks, 

 walnut, and pecan in the eastern section, and the honey 

 locust, elms, hackberry, osage orange, and Russian 

 olive have proved valuable in even the drier soils. The 

 red cedar is the only native evergreen, and since it 

 has been shown that a two-year stratification or 

 mechanical removal of the gummy coat makes its 

 propagation fairly certain, it has been grown more 

 largely than ever before. It is one of the most adapta- 

 ble trees hi the list, growing in every county in Kansas. 

 The bull pine or western yellow pine, Pinus ponderosa, 

 is well suited, and the Austrian and the Scotch pines 

 are good trees for Kansas. 



In the boom days of Kansas every citizen felt in duty 

 bound to believe that every crop of the temperate 

 regions could be grown here with less effort than else- 

 where and that all the varieties of soil were equally 

 fertile. The modern Kansan is learning that the great 

 variety of soils and conditions gives opportunity for 

 many lines of agricultural industry and that the welfare 

 of the state is best secured by using crops best suited to 

 soil and conditions. The men who have succeeded in 

 the various lines of horticulture have done so by using 

 the natural resources in a rational way. Some of the 

 big orchards set in the early days on suitable soils have 

 proved to be valuable properties, but careful work has 

 been given them. Others set in a spirit of speculation 

 with no investigation of soil suitability or with little idea 

 of the value of varieties have not been particularly 

 profitable. 



Public-service agencies for horticulture. 



The State Agricultural College is at Manhattan, and 

 has from its earliest years maintained a Department of 

 Horticulture. For some years the work in entomology 

 was combined with that of horticulture and the two 

 lines of work have always been closely associated. 

 Experiments in the control of fruit insects were one of 

 the first lines of activity undertaken when the Experi- 

 ment Station was founded in 1887. 



The Extension Division of the College has main- 

 tained a publicity bureau that has done much in getting 

 buyers and producers of fruit into communication. The 

 College renders considerable service in the matter of 

 civic improvement, members of the staff visiting many 

 localities delivering lectures, making suggestions and 

 preparing plans for parks, cemeteries and the grounds 

 for public buildings. 



In several localities cooperative associations have 

 been formed for the promotion of horticultural inter- 

 ests. The Wathena Fruit Growers' Association is the 

 largest, shipping each season hundreds of carloads of 

 fruit grown by its members. 



140 



The State Horticultural Society in its fifty years of 

 service has accumulated a wealth of information that 

 is proving to be a safe foundation for horticultural 

 enterprises. There are a number of county and local 

 horticultural societies which have served their com- 

 munities faithfully and well. 



Statistics (Thirteenth^ Census). 



The approximate land area in 1910 was 52,335,360 

 acres; the land in farms 43,384,799 acres, or 82.9 per 

 cent of the land area. The improved land in farms 

 was 29,904,067 acres, or 68.9 per cent of the land area 

 in farms. There were 1,205,910 acres of woodland in 

 the farms and 12,274,822 acres of other unimproved 

 land in farms. The total number of farms in Kansas 

 in 1910 was 177,841. The average number of acres to 

 a farm was 244. [The total area of Kansas is 82,158 

 square miles.] 



The leading agricultural crops of Kansas are cereals 

 and hay and forage. Of the total value of all crops in 

 1909, 78.7 per cent was contributed by cereals and 14.9 

 per cent by hay and forage. The acreage of cereals 

 increased from 13,326,940 in 1899 to 15,638,669 in 1909, 

 when the value of the production was $169,109,449. 

 Hay and forage decreased in acreage from 4,337,342 in 

 1899 to 3,957,745 in 1909 when the production was 

 valued at $32,033,954. Broom-corn was produced to the 

 value of $593,947 in 1909, and sugar crops to the value 

 of $508,024. The value of the forest products of the 

 farms in 1909 was $1,336,950, as compared with $837,- 

 997, then- value in 1899. 



Horticultural crops grown in Kansas are fruits and 

 nuts, small-fruits in a limited amount, vegetables to 

 quite a large extent and flowers and plants and nursery 

 products. The value of all fruits and nuts produced in 

 Kansas in 1909 was $1,136,977, as compared with 

 $2,031,406 in 1899. The acreage occupied by the small- 

 fruits decreased 7.3 per cent, from 5,824 acres in 1899 

 to 5,400 acres in 1900, when the production was 5,477,- 

 274 quarts, valued at $454,200. Vegetables, including 

 potatoes, occupied, in 1909, an acreage of 132,665 and 

 the value of their products was $6,808,653. The raising 

 of flowers and plants and nursery products is of some 

 importance in Kansas, 4,164 acres being devoted to 

 them in 1909, with an output valued at $1,222,208. 



The production of all orchard fruits was 58.8 per cent 

 less in 1909 than in 1899. The total production of 

 orchard fruits in 1909 was 1,447,849 bushels, valued 

 at $944,631. Apples produced more than nine- tenths 

 of this quantity, with cherries ranking next in impor- 

 tance. The apple trees of bearing age in 1910 numbered 

 6,929,673; those not of bearing age 1,116,316. The 

 production in 1909 was 1,356,438 bushels, valued at 

 $807,865. Cherry trees of bearing age in 1910 num- 

 bered 661,267; those not of bearing age, 237,051. The 

 production in 1909 was 34,409 bushels, valued at 

 $76,734. Quantities of other fruits grown in 1909 were: 

 24,567 bushels of peaches and nectarines, valued at 

 $23,418; 19,412 bushels of pears, valued at $21,543; 

 and 12,250 bushels of plums and prunes, valued at 

 $14,001. In addition, small quantities of quinces, 

 apricots and mulberries were produced. 



The production of grapes declined from 15,786,019 

 pounds with a value of $297,000 in 1899 to a production 

 of 6,317,684 pounds with a value of $184,673 in 1909. 

 The number of grape-vines of bearing age in 1910 was 

 2,889,845; those not of bearing age numbered 343,002. 



The production of nuts in Kansas is of minor im- 

 portance. In 1909 the most important nut was the 

 black walnut, of which 377,649 pounds were produced, 

 valued at $6,033. The other nut of importance is the 

 pecan, of which 20,583 pounds were produced in 1909, 

 valued at $1,462. In addition, 3,950 pounds of hickory- 

 nuts, valued at $107, and 275 pounds of chestnuts, 

 valued at $19, were produced in 1909. 



Blackberries and dewberries are the most important 



