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SPRINGFIELD,
MISSOURI,
AND SURROUNDINGS • 1889
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have fewer enemies in this country than in any other of my knowledge, and
from present indications, fruit farming ten years hence will rank second
only to mining, among the leading industries. THE NATIVE GRASSES, which
number over 100 varieties, and make a luxuriant growth both in forest and
prairie, have proven a great resource to the early settlers and are still
of great value to farmers and stockmen, both for hay and grazing; but they
are steadily giving way to DOMESTIC GRASSES, all of which flourish here
as if “to the manor born.” Red clover makes the finest growth in these woodland
soils that I have ever seen in any country, and is much more tenacious than
in the East and North. Timothy does finely on the prairies and in the lowlands.
White clover and blue grass are both indigenous and are gradually making
their way to the conquest of the whole country. Herds grass and orchard
grass do finely, but the climate has too much humidity for alfalfa, which
is more at home in the plains and mountains. It goes without saying that
Southwest Missouri is a SPLENDID STOCK COUNTRY. Its matchless water supply,
mild and equable climate, luxuriant and nutritious wild and domestic grasses,
the admirable natural shelter accorded by the wooded hills, gulches and
ravines and the astonishing cheapness of grazing lands together with the
admirable railway facilities make it one of the most desirable and attractive
stock-growing regions available to stock men. Horses, cattle, and mules
mature a full year earlier than in the colder North and East, and the general
cultivation of blue grass and clover will come very near to making perennial
grazing for this whole region. All kinds of stock do well here, and with
the establishment of pork and beef packing houses in Springfield, and a
first-class home market thereby secured, I believe this will early become
the most popular stock growing country in the West. As a sheep country it
has no superior, and for BUTTER AND CHEESE DAIRYING, either by creameries
or private farm dairying, one could hardly conceive of a better country
than this land of clear, cold springs, pure atmosphere, mild climate, superb
grasses, and the facilities for reaching the fine butter and cheese markets
of the South and West. Many a reader will ask, IS FARMING A SUCCESS in Southwest
Missouri? Yes, it is; and very nearly an unqualified success. First, farm
lands are so cheap that the investment in them is not large enough to render
farming unprofitable, as in many older countries; second, the climate and
soils are both generous enough to favor profitable farming; third, an average
yearly RAINFALL, of more than thirty inches, dissipates all doubt as to
the certainty of crops, and leaves the responsibility of crop-raising with
the farmer himself. Better still, during the forty years of farm experience
in this region, they have NEVER LOST A CROP. Such a thing as a general crop
failure is unknown to this portion of the State. Wind and tide—everything—favor
the tiller of the soil in this country. Fuel and fencing are cheap, and
cut no figure in his expense account. Everything he must buy is cheap by
comparison with its cost in the new prairie States. He is nearer to the
great grain, stock and produce markets, and gets better pay for his products
than the men of the western plains. He lives in a country of LIGHT TAXES
and knows little of the burden of heavy bonded indebtedness as in the older
Eastern and newer Western States. Better than all else, he has cast his
lot with A PROGRESSIVE COSMOPOLITAN PEOPLE gathered from all portions of
the Union, and attracted to this beautiful and fertile region by the grand
measure of resources and advantages which any other State might covet. No
portion of the American Union can boast a more enterprising, ambitious,
intelligent, self-helpful and self-respecting population than the country
tributary to Springfield, a fact that explains, in good measure, the remarkable
prosperity and growth of this fortunate city. Within the radius of country
outlined in these pages, live and thrive nearly A HALF MILLION PEOPLE who
have left behind them the provincial conceits and prejudice and narrowness,
born of more homogeneous conditions in the lands of their nativity, and
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