Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

S. Roundtree, Springfield; 7th, E. Brown, Sedalia; 8th, Z. S. Ragan, Independence; 9th, J. Madinger, St. Joseph; 10th, W. H. Miller, Chilicothe; 11th, G. Husmann, Columbia; 12th, J. Hawkins, Hannibal; 13th, W. Stark, Louisiana.

APPLES.-All the standard varieties of the temperate zone are raised in their highest perfection in the state of Missouri; but in such a large area of country as our state comprises, and with such a great variety of soils, and other conditions, each different kind has its locality of best success. It is therefore not possible to indicate what varieties are best for the state; each district will have its favorites. At the national exhibit, in 1878, Missouri showed one hundred and forty plates of apples. Distinguished pomologists assert that ten counties in north Missouri can show apples in as great variety and perfection as any ten other states in the Union.

[ocr errors]

Perhaps no better proof can be given of the general excellence of Missouri fruits than the fact that at the meeting of the American pomological society, in September, 1878, medals were awarded to Missouri for the best displays of apples, pears and wines, and also one for the best general display of fruits. These honors were gained in competition with every state in the union, represented by their choicest fruits, and at an exhibition held at Rochester, New York, which had long been regarded as the very center of the fruit growing interests of the country. fruits exhibited on that occasion were from different parts of the state. St. Joseph, Independence, Morrison, Columbia, Hermann, St. Louis county, Boone county, and other districts were represented, and shared the honors of our great victory.

The

The varieties that appear to have received most favor at the meeting of our state agricultural society, in 1880, were Ben Davis, Winesap, Jonathan, Dominie, Rawle's Janet, Milam, Northern Spy, Carthouse, Newtown Pippin, Summer Pippin, Red June, Early Harvest, Red Astrachan, Late Summer, Dutchess of Oldenburg, Early Pennock, St. Lawrence, Maiden Blush, Rambo, Grimes' Golden, Limber Twig, Little Romanite.

PEACHES.-The southeastern portion of the state, along the line of the Iron Mountain railroad, and the western portion, where the marly deposits are so rich and extensive, are pre-eminently the peach districts, and in these regions the peach seems almost indigenous, never failing to produce abundant crops; and yet fruit-growers in these districts say that they are never able to supply the demand, Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado taking all from the western region, and St. Louis having to draw upon other states for her supplies. Peaches may be relied upon as a profitable crop in all that part of the state south of the Missouri river, and, indeed, are largely grown much further north, St. Joseph exporting large amounts.

In some localities the trees have occasionally been winter-killed, when not in suitable soil or not sheltered; but, on the whole, Missouri may fairly be set down as a peach-growing state. Mr. R. Lynn, of Rockport, in the northwest part of the state, says he has raised three good paying crops of peaches in seven years, the first crop being the third year from planting; his best crop was in 1878.

PEARS.-Pears do well throughout the state, especially in the region of Clay, Jackson and Cass counties. The trees attain a great size and age-a diameter of from twelve to fifteen inches is common; and there are trees a short distance south of St. Louis over two hundred years old, and still bearing full crops. The pear, although the most luscious fruit grown in northern latitudes, is also one of the most difficult to raise successfully—hence it is a matter of reasonable pride and gratification that this fruit has done so well in our state. At the national pomological exhibition, of 1878, there were from this state: From the Missouri Valley horticultural society, Kansas City, twenty varieties of pears; from Jacob Rhodes, Bridgeton, nine varieties; from J. Madinger, St. Joseph, six varieties; from W. Stark, Louisiana, two varieties. Some of the finest specimens at the exhibition were grown near St. Louis, on stocks of the white thorn.

GRAPES. For several years the chief fruit-growing interest of our state seemed to center on the grape-at least, it was more discussed and advocated in fashionable circles, than all the other fruits put together. The anti-prohibition sentiment rallied around the grape-growing industry for the manufacture of native wines, as the great panacea for all the ills and horrors of intemperance. But aside from any matter of sentiment in the case, it does seem as though we excel all other states of the Union in the variety and richness of our grapes, both of native and cultivated varieties. From Prof. Swallow's report on the country along the lines of the southwestern branch of the Missouri Pacific railroad, published in 1859, we learn that seven different native grapes have been found in Missouri. 1. Vitis Labrusca, commonly called "fox grape." The Isabella, Catawba, Schuylkill and Bland's seedling, are cultivated and popular varieties derived from this wild grape. 2. Vitis Aestivalis, or "summer grape." This is found in all parts of the state. 3. Vitis Cordifolia; winter grape, or "frost grape " as it is more commonly called. 4. Vitis Riparia, or "river grape," grows along streams and is quite large. 5. Vitis Vulpina; called also Muscadine. It grows mostly in the south part of the state, and is a large fine fruit. The cultivated grape called Scuppernong is derived from this wild variety. 6. Vitis Bipinnata; found in Cape Girardeau and Pemiscot counties. 7. Vitis Indivisa; found in central and western counties.

GRASSES.

There are few or no grasses that are peculiar to Missouri; and fortunately so, for there is no permanent advantage in being adapted to peculiar crops any more than in being a peculiar people. The great blessings of life are universal and widespread. It results that all the valuable members of this great and beneficial family of plants are adapted to and capable of being introduced and cultivated in this state. Flint, in his standard work on grasses, says: "Whoever has blue grass has the basis of all agricultural prosperity, and that man, if he have not the finest horses, cattle and sheep, has no one to blame but himself. Others, in other circumstances, may do well. He can hardly avoid doing well if he will try."

Blue grass is indigenous in Missouri. When the timber is removed it springs up spontaneously on the land, and, when the prairie is reclaimed, it soon takes possession and supersedes all other grasses. This famous grass is the foundation on which the mighty stock industry of Kentucky* has been built, and has given a world-renowned reputation to its fine blood horses, cattle and sheep. The combing-wool sheep and the fine mutton breeds have obtained a national reputation for wool and mutton in that state, and their usefulness has but begun. What blue grass has done for Kentucky, it is now doing for Missouri. An acre of this grass is worth an acre of corn.

Recent experience has proved that alfalfa or lucerne, that most fattening of all grasses, grows luxuriantly in this region, yielding each year three or four good crops of hay.

THE "GRASSHOPPER" IN MISSOURI.

As early as 1867, our state board of agriculture reported destruction by grasshoppers (the Rocky Mountain locust,) in the western part of the state the previous fall; and also, that there had been visitations more or less injurious in former years. But their greatest and most grievous invasion occurred in the fall of 1874, when 33 counties of western Missouri suffered from their ruthless ravages. Our state entomologist, Prof. C. V. Riley, made such a thorough, diligent and masterful study of their origin and habits, and the causes, methods and consequences of their migrations, that he became the standard authority on grasshoppers all over the civilized world. In 1876 the government appointed a special commission of entomologists to investigate the character and movements of these pests, and report for the benefit of the whole infested region, which comprised the country west of St. Paul, Minnesota, Jefferson City, Missouri, and Galveston, Texas, ranging from the Gulf of Mexico on the south, to

*"Kentucky blue grass," (so-called), is not native to that state: it is the same as the English spear grass, the New England June grass, or meadow grass-or, in botanical language, poa pratensis.

[ocr errors]

Lake Winnipeg and Manitoba in the British possessions northward, and as far west as the headquarters of the Columbia river. The most prominent scientists on this commission were our own Prof. Riley, and Prof. Samuel Aughey, of the state university of Nebraska.

The results of this United States commission were little if anything more than a tedious elaboration of what Prof. Riley had presented in three annual reports as state entomologist of Missouri. No new points of any special importance were discovered concerning them. The development of this subject, therefore, belongs to the history of what Missouri has done for science, for agriculture and for the public weal. In his seventh annual report to our state board of agriculture, 1875, Prof. Riley says:

"There is some difference of opinion as to the precise natural habitat and breeding places of these insects, but the facts all indicate that it is by nature a denizen of high altitudes, breeding in the valleys, parks and plateaus of the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado, and especially of Montana, Wyoming and British America. Prof. Cyrus Thomas, who has had an excellent opportunity of studying it, through his connection with Hayden's geological survey of the territories, reports it as occurring from Texas to British America, and from the Mississippi westward to the Sierra Nevada range. But in all this vast extent of country, and especially in the more southern latitudes, there is every reason to believe that it breeds only on the higher mountain elevations, and where the atmosphere is very dry and attenuated, and the soil, seldom, if ever, gets soaked with moisture. Prof. Thomas found it most numerous in all stages of growth, along the higher valleys and canyons of Colorado, tracing it up above the perennial snows, where the insects must have hatched, as it was found in the adolescent stage. In crossing the mountains in Colorado, it often gets chilled in passing snows, and thus perishes in immense numbers, where bears delight to feast upon it. My own belief is that the insect is at home in the higher altitudes of Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, northwest Dakota, and British America. It breeds in all this region, but particularly on the vast hot and dry plains and plateaus of the last named territories, and on the plains west of the mountains; its range being bounded, perhaps, on the east by that of the buffalo grass.

"Mr. Wm. N. Byers, of Denver, Colorado, shows that they hatch in immense quantities in the valleys of the three forks of the Missouri river and along the Yellowstone, and how they move on from there, when fledged, in a southeast direction, at about ten miles a day. The swarms of 1867 were traced, as he states, from their hatching grounds in west Dakota, and Montana, along the east flank of the Rocky Mountains, in the valleys and plains of the Black Hills, and between them and the main Rocky Mountain range. It all this immense stretch of country, as is well known, there are immense tracts of barren, almost desert land, while other tracts for hundreds of miles bear only a scanty vegetation, the short buffalo grass of the more fertile prairies giving way now to a more luxuriant vegetation along the water courses, now to the sage bush and a few cacti. Another physical peculiarity is found in the fact that while the

spring on these immense plains often opens as early, even away up into British America, as it does with us in the latitude of St. Louis, yet the vegetation is often dried and actually burned out before the first of July, so that not a green thing is to be found. Our Rocky Mountain locust, therefore, hatching out in untold myriads in the hot sandy plains, five or six thousand feet above the level of the sea, will often perish in immense numbers if the scant vegetation of its native home dries up before it acquires wings; but if the season is propitious, and the insect becomes fledged before its food supplies is exhausted, the newly acquired wings prove its salvation. It may also become periodically so prodigiously multiplied in its native breeding place, that, even in favorable seasons, everything green is devoured by the time it becomes winged.

"In either case, prompted by that most exigent law of hunger-spurred on for very life-it rises in immense clouds in the air to seek for fresh pastures where it may stay its ravenous appetite. Borne along by prevailing winds that sweep over these immense treeless plains from the northwest, often at the rate of fifty or sixty miles an hour, the darkening locust clouds are soon carried into the more moist and fertile country to the southeast, where, with sharpened appetites, they fall upon the crops like a plague and a blight.

Many of the more feeble or of the more recently fledged perish, no doubt, on he way, but the main army succeeds, with favorable wind, in bridging over the parched country which offers no nourishment. The hotter and dryer the season, and the greater the extent of the drouth, the earlier will they be prompted to migrate, and the farther will they push on to the east and south.

"The comparatively sudden change from the attenuated and dry atmosphere of five to eight thousand feet or more above the sea level, to the more humid and dense atmosphere of one thousand feet below that level, does not agree with them. The first generation hatched in this low country is unhealthy, and the few that attain maturity do not breed, but become intestate and go to the dogs. At least such is the case in our own state and the whole of the Mississippi valley proper. As we go west or northwest and approach nearer and nearer the insect's native home, the power to propagate itself and become localized, becomes, of course, greater and greater, until at last we reach the country where it is found perpetually. Thus in the western parts of Kansas and Nebraska the progeny from the mountain swarms may multiply to the second or even third generation, and wing their way in more local and feeble bevies to the country east and south. Yet eventually they vanish from off the face of the earth, unless fortunate enough to be carried back by favorable winds to the high and dry country where they flourish.

"That they often instinctively seek to return to their native haunts is proven by the fact that they are often seen flying early in the season in a northwesterly direction. As a rule, however, the wind which saved the first comers from starvation by bearing them away from their native home, keeps them and their issue to the east and south, and thus, in the end proves their destruction. For in the Mississippi valley they are doomed, sooner or later. There is nothing more certain than that the insect is not antochthonous in west Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, or even Minnesota, and that when forced to migrate from its native home, from the causes already mentioned, it no longer thrives in this country."

« ForrigeFortsett »