HOW THINGS GROW 



IN SOUTH DAKOTA. 



HE STATES west of the Mis- 

 souri line — Kansas, Nebraska 

 and the Dakotas, have long 

 been known as the arid region 

 of America. And their devel- 

 opment has been in a measure 

 hampered by the belief, firm 

 seated in the eastern mind, 

 that they could only become 

 great agricultural common- 

 wealths by the aid of irrigation. In the beginning, 

 the school geographers were largely responsible for 

 the slander. In every school-room in the country, 

 twenty years ago, the pupils were taught to locate 

 the " Great American Desert " between the Rocky 

 Mountains on the west and the Missouri and the 

 Red River of the North on the east. Gradually 

 this vast region established for itself a better name. 

 In the states of Kansas and Nebraska the "de- 

 sert " line has been pushed westward, until only a 

 small part of them will acknowledge being semi- 

 arid, and the word "desert" has no place within 

 their borders. Every person knows that the famous 

 Red River Valley of North Dakota is the greatest 

 wheat-producing region in the world. South 

 Dakota, also, notwithstanding recent dry seasons, 

 which she has shared with Iowa and Minnesota, 

 states that in pioneer times were also known as 

 desert regions, has proven by her rapid develop- 

 ment and great agricultural resources that the 

 American Desert of twenty years ago has no place 

 within her limits, or at most is confined to that 

 rendesvous of the Sioux Indians, the Bad Lands. 



Horticulture is not a pioneer art. In the develop- 

 ment of the entire west — beginning with the century, 

 when that word meant Kentucky and Ohio, until the 

 present time, when the more restless people of Dakota 

 pull up stakes and move "Out West" to Montana or 

 Washington — agriculture has always been well estab- 

 lished before the finer processes of horticulture were 

 thought of. The reason is plain : man must have bread 

 and meat, but he can exist, though he can hardly be said 

 to live, without fruit and flowers. And in these first pio- 

 neer struggles, so much of the energy, mental and phy- 

 sical, of the settler has been expended in opening up the 

 farm, such close attention has been demanded by the 

 field crops, that usually the frontiersman has been led to 

 believe that nothing will succeed except grain and stock. 

 Hence there was a time in the history of Illinois when 

 her people scoffed the idea of fruit raising in that state. 

 The older citizens of Iowa yet affirm that apples cannot 

 be grown successfully there, despite the yearly crops of 



native fruit they enjoy. It is true orcharding is not as 

 yet a great industry of the state, but certain counties 

 are establishing for their orchard fruits a recognized 

 place in the western markets. Kansas and Nebraska 

 plant thousands of acres every year to fruit trees, and 

 South Dakota also, so much younger than its neighbors 

 as to be still in the pioneer stage of development, has, in 

 all the older counties, enthusiastic fruit men, who are 

 every year proving their faith by their works. 



Any map will prove useful in giving the eastern read- 

 er an idea of the horticultural geography of South 

 Dakota. The oldest settled part of the state, and the 

 most favorably located for fruit growing is the valley of 

 the Missouri river, on the south line, including the 

 counties of Union, Clay, Yankton and Bon Homme. 

 These counties are crossed by numerous streams that 

 flow into the Missouri, and the broad valley of that 

 great river, with the fertile, well watered uplands, seems 

 to be adapted to the hardier orchard fruits. 



I have never seen finer specimens of Fameuse, 

 Wealthy and Duchess apples than are yearly exhibited 

 at the South Dakota state fair and the Sioux City corn 

 palace by the fruit growers of the counties named. 

 Finer fruit is not grown anywhere. The orchards are 

 not numerous as yet, but every year adds to the acreage, 

 and I have no doubt it will be but a short time before 

 Dakota grown apples will appear in western markets. 

 Probably one drawback, a difficulty always experienced 

 in a new country, has been the use of tender varieties. It 

 is difficult for the eastern man to understand that the 

 temperature and moisture lines do not correspond with 

 the parallels of latitude, and it usually takes experience 

 to prove that hardy fruits in the east are tender fruits 

 in the west. But even in South Dakota some of the 

 Eastern favorites succeed. I am informed that in the 

 Black Hills region, in the southwestern part of the 

 state, the Ben Davis apple has been largely planted. 

 At our state fairs, however, more plates of Wealthy are 

 shown than of any other variety. 



In Turner county there is an orchard just coming into 

 bearing that contains several thousand trees. I know 

 of promising young orchards in Lake, McCook, Davi- 

 son, Sanborn and Grant counties. 



The experiment orchard of the Agricultural College, 

 in Brookings county, contains over five hundred trees, 

 that have passed through two winters ; the orchard is 

 rich in promise ; the trees made as fine growth the past 

 season as could be desired. These are but a few in- 

 stances. But they show that throughout the older part 

 of South Dakota, the people are beginning to work out 

 their horticultural salvation. 



The apple has come to be regarded throughout the 

 great part of America as in a certain sense a synonym 

 for "fruit," but there are other fruits which are more 

 promising in our state. Along all the streams are wild 



