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A beautiful country is this North-east Missouri, whose fortunate location, charming landscape, equable climate, versatile and generous soils, fruitful orchards and vineyards, matchless grasses, broad grain fields, noble forests, abundant' waters and cheap lands, present to the capitalist and immigrant one of the most inviting fields for investment and settlement to be found between the two oceans. During the unexampled Western migratory movement of the last eight years, which has peopled Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska and other regions with an intelligent and enterprising population, this rich and productive country, has, until recently, remained a terra incognito to the average immigrant, the new States above named getting accessions of brain, heart, muscle, experience and capital, that have given them a commanding position in the Union. And yet it can not be denied that Missouri offers to intelligent, enterprising and ambitious men of fair capital more of the elements of substantial and enjoyable living than any country now open to settlement. In one of the fairest and most fertile districts of Missouri is Monroe county. Monroe county is admirably located within the productive middle belt of the continent, a strip of country not exceeding 450 miles wide, lying between the latitudes of Minneapolis and Richmond, reaching from ocean to ocean, and within which, will be found every great commercial, financial and railway city, ninety per cent of the manufacturing industries, the great dairy and fruit interests, the strongest agriculture, the densest, strongest and most cosmopolitan population, all the great universities, the most advanced school systems, and the highest average of health known to the continent. Scarcely less significant is the location of the county in the more wealthy and productive portions of the great central State of the Union, which, by virtue of its position and splendid aggregation of resources, is bound to the commercial, political and material life of the country by the strongest ties, and must forever feel the quickening of its best energies, from every throb of 'the national heart. Monroe county is in the right latitude, which is a matter of primary interest to the immigrant. Lying in the path of empire and transcontinental travel, in the latitude of Washington and Cincinnati, it has the climate influence that has given to Northern Kentucky and North Virginia an enviable reputation for equable temperature. A mean altitude of about 800 feet above the tides gives tone and rarity to the atmosphere and the equable mean of temperature. Most of the short winter is mild, dry and genial enough to pass for a Minnesota Indian summer. The snow-fall is generally light, infrequent and transient. The long summer days are often tempered by inspiring breezes from the South-western plains, and followed much of the time by cool, restful nights.

The annual rain-fall is from 28 to 40 inches, and is so well distributed over the growing season, that less than a fair crop of grains, vegetables and grasses is rarely known. The annual drainage of the country is excellent, the deepest set streams readily carrying off the surplus water from the generally undulating surface, only a limited area being too flat to shed the surplus rains. The water supply of Monroe county is alike ample and admirable. More than a score of deep-set streams traverse every portion of the county, and with an occasional spring, hundreds of artificial ponds, and many living wells and cisterns, furnish pure water for all domestic purposes. The markets are well supplied with hard and soft woods at $2 to $3 per cord, and there is a good supply of building and fencing timber. The supply of good building stone, too, is equal to all present and prospective needs, massive deposits of well stratified limestone being found outcropping along the streams and ravines. The cost of fencing is materially lower here than in most of the new or old prairie States. In the wooded districts, the fences are cheaply made of common posts or stakes and rails. In the prairie districts some fencing is done with osage orange. With proper care, a farmer can grow a mile of stock-proof hedge in four years, at a cost of $1.25 in labor. The newer farms are being fenced with barbed wire, which is esteemed the quickest, most reliable, durable and cheapest fence now in use here. The stock farmers are especially friendly to barbed wire fencing, some of them having put up several miles in the last three years.

The soils of Monroe county are developing elements of productive wealth as cultivation advances. The prairie soil is a dark, friable alluvial, from one to three feet deep, rich in humus, very easily handled and produces fine crops of corn, oats, flax, rye, broom corn, sorghum, vegetables and grasses. The oak and hickory soil of the principal woodlands is a shade lighter in color; is rather more consistent; holds a good percent of lime and magnesia, carbonates of lime, phosphate, silicia, alumnia, organic matter, etc., and produces fine crops of wheat, clover and fruits, and with deep rotative culture, gives splendid returns for the labor bestowed.

The valleys are covered with a deposit of black, imperishable alluvial, from three to eight feet in depth, and as loose and friable as a heap of compost, grow from 40 to 80 bushels of corn to the acre, and give an enormous yield to anything grown in this latitude. While these soils present a splendid array of productive forces, they are supplemented by sub-soils equal to any known to husbandry. The entire superficial soils of the county are underlaid by strong, consistent silicious clays and marls, so rich in lime, magnesia, alumnia, organic matter, and other valuable constituents, that centuries of deep cultivation will prove them like the kindred loess of the Rhine and Nile valleys, absolutely indestructible. Everywhere about the railway cuts, ponds, cisterns, cellars and other excavations, where these clays and marls have had one or two years' exposure to frost and air, they have slacked to the consistency of an ash heap, and bear such a rank growth of weeds, grass, grain, vegetables and young trees, that in the older and less fertile States they might readily be taken for deposits of the richest compost. After three years' observation in Central and Northern Missouri, we are prepared to believe that a hundred years hence, when the older Eastern and Southern States, shall have been hopelessly given over to the artificial fertilizers of man, and a new race of farmers are carrying systematic and deep cultivation down into this wonderful alien deposit of silicious matter, the whole of North and Central Missouri will have become the classic ground in American agriculture; and these imperishable soils in the hands of small farmers will have become a very garden of beauty and bounty, and these Monroe county lands will command splendid prices on a strong market. The lanes of the county are nearly all available because they are nearly all good. The lowest bottoms are becoming free of swamps and lagoons, and the highest elevations are comparatively free of rocks and impediments to cultivation. It is safe to say these soils, together, give the broadest range of production known to American husbandry. It is the pride and boast of the Monroe county farmer that he can grow in perfection every grain, vegetable, grass, plant and fruit that flourishes between the northern limits of the cotton fields and the Red river of the North. Both the surface indications of the soil and its native and domestic productions indicate its versatility and bounty. But a few years ago much of the outlying commons was covered with a luxuriant growth of wild prairie grass, of which there were many varieties, all of more or less value for pasturage and hay. Nearly all the natural ranges are now inclosed and under tribute to the herdsmen, and it is safe to say that their native herbage will put more flesh on cattle from the beginning of April to early autumn than any of the domestic grasses. With the progress of settlement and cultivation, however, they are steadily disappearing before the tenacious and all-conquering blue grass, which is surely making the conquest of every rod of the county not under tribute to the plow. Blue grass is an indigenous growth here many of the older and open woodland pastures rivaling the famous blue grass regions of Kentucky, both in the luxuriance of their growth and the high quality of the herbage. Now and then one meets a Kentuckian so provincial in his attachments and conceits that he can see nothing quite equal to the blue grass of Old Bourbon county; but the mass of impartial Kentuckians, who constitute a large per centum of the population here, admit that the same care bestowed upon the blue grass fields of Kentucky gives equally as fine results in Monroe county, whose blue grass ranges are certainly superior to any in Illinois: This splendid king of grasses, which in this mild climate makes a luxuriant early spring and autumn growth, is also supplemented here by white clover, which is also " to the manor born;" and on this mixture of alluvial with the underlying silicious marls and clays makes a fine growth, especially in years of full moisture, and is a strong factor in the sum of local grazing wealth. With these two grasses, followed by orchard grass for winter grazing, the herdsmen of Monroe county have the most desirable of all stock-growing conditions -perennial grazing-which, with the fine grades of stock kept here, means wealth for all classes of stockgrowers. 

There is another essential element of grazing resource here  and it is found in the splendid timothy meadows, which are equal to any in the Western Reserve or the Canadas. These meadows give a heavy growth of hay and seed, both of which are largely and profitably grown for export. Red clover is quite as much at home here as timothy, and its cultivation is being successfully extended by all the better farmers for mixed meadow pasturage and seed. Here, too, is found a growth of herds' grass (red top) which during the past summer has made fine showing, the low swale lands and ravines presenting grand, waving billows of herds' grass, almost as rich and rank of growth as the blue stem of the wild Western prairie bottoms. With this showing for the native and domestic grasses, it is almost needless to pronounce Monroe county a superb stock county.

With millions of bushels of corn grown at a cost of sixteen to eighteen cents per bushel ; an abundance of pure stock water and these matchless grasses; the fine natural shelter afforded by the wooded valleys and ravines; the facilities for transportation to the great stock markets; the mildness and healthfulness of the climate and the cheapness of the grazing lands, nothing pays so well or is so perfectly adapted to the country as stock husbandry. Cattle, sheep, swine, horse and mule raising and feeding are all pursued with profit in this county, the business, in good hands, paying net yearly returns of twenty to forty per cent on the investment, many sheep growers realizing a much greater net profit.

Cattle growing and feeding, in connection with swine raising and feeding, is now the leading industry of the county. High-grade short horns of model types, bred from the best beef getting stock, are kept by many of the growers and feeders, the steers being grazed during the warm months, after which they are " full fed " and turned off during the winter and spring, weighing from 1,200 to 1,700 pounds ,gross at two and three years old, the heavier animals going to European buyers. The steers are fed in conjunction with Berkshire and Poland China pigs, which fatten upon the droppings and litter of the feed yard, and go into market weighing from 250 to 400 pounds. at 10 to 14 months old. These steers and pigs are bred and grazed, and without doubt will average in quality and weight with the best grades fed in any of the older States. Horse and mule raising is a favorite industry with many of the farmers and has been pursued with profit for years, a large surplus of well-bred horses and mules going mainly to Southern markets each year. Sheep raising has for several years been a favorite and highly profitable branch of stock husbandry here, many growers realizing a net profit of 40 to 60 per cent on the money invested in the business. The wool produced in 1880 amounted to 229,158 pounds. This county is remarkably well suited to sheep growing, the flocks increasing rapidly and being generally free from disease. There are many small flocks that give a higher per cent of profit than the figures above given, but even the larger herds make a splendid showing. Merinos are mainly kept by the larger flockmasters, but the hundreds of smaller flocks, ranging from 40 to 100 each, are mainly Cotswolds and Downs, the former predominating, and the wool clips running from five to nine pounds per capita of unwashed wool.

Sheep feeding is conducted with unusual profit here, the mild winters, cheap feed and the very cheap transportation to the great mutton markets especially favoring the business. A. statement, which gives the number of cattle, sheep, hogs, horses, mules, and the value of each class in this county, in 1880, is unquestionably fifteen to twenty per cent below the real number of animals kept in the county, and shows a large increase over the report of 1870. The live stock exports of the county last year exceeded 1,500 car loads of fat cattle, sheep, swine, horses and mules, worth in the home market at present prices considerably more than $2,000,000, and yet the business is comparatively in its infancy, not more than half the stock growing resources of the county beings yet developed.

Dairy farming might be very profitably pursued here, the grasses, water and near market for first-class dairy products all favoring the business in a high degree. In 1880, there were 400,000 pounds of butter made. 

Monroe county could be made a stock breeder's paradise, as the demand for all classes of well-bred stock is always in excess of the supply. In former years the local growers have mostly depended on the breeders of the older neighboring counties for their thoroughbred stock animals, but of late many fine short horns have been brought in, and superior stock horses have been introduced, and there are a dozen of good breeders of sheep and swine, whose stock will rank with the best in the country. Stock breeding, grazing and feeding under the favoring local conditions, is the surest and most profitable business that can be pursued in the West, or, for that matter, anywhere in the " wide, wide world."

Not a single man of ordinary sense and business capacity in this county, that has followed the one work of raising and feeding his own stock, abjuring speculation, and sticking closely to the business, has (or ever will) failed to make money. It beats wheat growing two to one, though the latter calling be pursued under the most favorable conditions in the best wheat regions. It beats speculation of every sort, for it is as sure as the rains and sunshine. What are stocks, bonds, "options," mining shares, merchandise, or traffic of any character besides those matchless and magnificent grasses that come of their own volition and are fed through all the ages by the eternal God, upon the rains and dews and imperishable soils of such a land as this? If the writer were questioned as to the noblest calling among men, outside of the ministry of " peace and good will," he would unhesitatingly point to the quiet and honorable pastoral life of these Western herdsmen. Stock growing in Monroe county, as everywhere, develops a race of royal men, and is the one absorbing, entertaining occupation of the day and location. If it be eminently practical and profitable, so, too, it is invested with a poetic charm. To grow the green succulent, luxuriant grass, develop the finest lines of grace and beauty in animal conformation, tend one's herds and flocks on the green, fragrant range, live in the atmosphere of delicate sympathy with the higher forms and impulses of the animal life in one's care, and to be inspired by the higher sentiments and traditions of honorable breeding, is a life to be coveted by the best men of all lands. By the side of the herds and grasses and herdsmen of such a country as this, the men of the grain fields are nowhere. These men of the herds are leading a far more satisfactory life than the Hebrew shepherds led on the Assyrian hills in the old, dead centuries; they tend, their flocks and raise honest children in the sweet atmosphere of content. They are in peace with their neighbors, and look out upon a pastoral landscape as fair as ever graced the canvas of Turner. The skies above them are as radiant as those above the Arno, and if the finer arts of the old land are little cultivated by the herdsmen of these peaceful valleys, they are yet devoted to the higher art of patient and honorable human living.

The lands are cheap, the location exceptionally fine, and the other advantages over the older States so great that the question of competition is all in favor of this country. This country is admirably suited to " mixed farming." The versatility and bounty of the soil, wide range of production, the competition between the railways and great rivers for the carrying trade, and the nearness of the great markets all favor the variety farmer. With a surplus of capital, sheep, pigs, mules, horses, wool, wheat, eggs, poultry, fruit, dairy products, etc., he is master of the situation. The farmers of Monroe county live easier and cheaper than those of the older States. The labor bestowed upon 40 acres in Ohio, New York or New England, will thoroughly cultivate 100 acres of these richer, cleaner and more flexible soils. Animals require less care and feed and mature earlier; the home requires less fuel; the fields are finely suited to improved machinery, and it is safe to say that the average Monroe county farmer gets through the real farm work of the year in 150 days. Nature is so prodigal in her gifts to man, that the tendency is to go slow and take the world easy. Nor is this at all wonderful in a country where generous Mother Nature does seventy per cent of the' productive work, charitably leaving only thirty per cent for the brain and muscle of her sons. It is only natural that this condition of things tends to loose and unthrifty methods of farming, and that the consequent waste of a half section of land here would give a comfortable support to a Connecticut or Canadian farmer. It is in evidence, however, from the experience of all thorough and systematic farmers here, that no region in America gives grander sections to good farming than this county. There is not one of all the thorough, systematic, rotative and deep cultivators of the country who has not and does not make money. No soils give a better account of themselves in skilled and thrifty hands than these, and it is greatly to their honor that they have yielded so much wealth under such indifferent treatment. These Monroe county lands will every time pay for themselves under anything like decent treatment. They are near the center of the great corn and blue grass area of the country, where agriculture has stood the test of half a century of unfailing production, where civilization is surely and firmly founded on intellectual and refined society, schools, churches and railways, markets, mills and elegant homes. The lands of the county will nearly double in value during the next decade. Nothing short of material desolation can prevent such a result. Everywhere in the older States there is more or less inquiry about Missouri lands, and all the indications point to a strong inflow of intelligent and well-to-do people from the older States. Does the reader ask why lands are so cheap under such favorable, material conditions? Well, the question is easily answered. Up to a recent date, little or nothing has been done by the people of the State to advertise to the world its manifold and magnificent resources. Still worse, Missouri has, for two decades, been under the ban of public prejudice throughout the North and East, the people of those sections believing Missourians to be a race of ignorant, inhospitable, proscriptive and intolerant bulldozers, who were inimical to Northern immigration, enterprise and progress. Under this impression, half a million immigrants have annually passed by this beautiful country, bound for the immigrants' Utopia, which is generally laid in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and Texas. This mighty army of resolute men and women, with their wealth of gold, experience and courage, have been lost to a State of which they unfortunately knew little and cared to know less. Under such conditions there has, of course, been a dearth of land buyers. Happily Monroe county has been advertised by her local newspapers, her enterprising real estate men and other agencies, and has, perhaps, suffered less at the hands of ill-founded prejudice than many other sections. 

The people of Monroe county - 22,000 strong- are as intelligent, refined and hospitable as those of Ohio or Michigan; and a more tolerant, appreciative, chivalrous community never undertook the subjugation of a beautiful wilderness to noble human uses. We have passed a number of years in Northern and Central Missouri, visiting the towns, looking into the industrial life of the people, inspecting the farms and herds, reviewing the school and carefully watching the drift of popular feeling, and are pleased to affirm that there is nowhere in the Union a more order-loving and law-respecting population than that of Monroe county.

"The life they live" here is quite as refined and rational as any phase of the social and political life at the North. Whatever they did in the exciting and perilous years of the war, they are to-day as frank, liberal and cordial in their treatment of Northern people, and as ready to appreciate and honor every good quality in them, as if they were to the manor born." A strong Union sentiment is everywhere apparent. Many persons were strong Union Democrats during the war, never swerving in their fealty to the Union, and the old flag floats as proudly in Central and North Missouri as in the shadows of Independence Hall. All parties are agreed that slavery is dead, and that its demise was a blessing to every prime interest of the country. There is not a man of character in the county who would restore the institution if he could. A good majority of the first settlers of 'this county hail from Kentucky and Virginia, or are descended from Kentucky or Virginia families, and have the deliberation, frankness, good sense, admiration of fair play, reverence for woman and home, boundless home hospitality and strong self-respect, for which the average Kentuckian and Virginian is proverbial. They have a habit of minding their own business that is refreshing to see. The new-comer is not catechised as to social antecedents or politics, but is estimated for what he is and does. They don't care where a man hails from, if he be sensible and honest. They take care of their credit as if it were their only stock in trade. When a man's word ceases to be as good as his bond, his credit, business and standing are gone, and the loss of honorable prestige is not at all easy of recovery. 

Sterling character finds as high appreciation here as in any country, of our knowledge. The visitor is impressed with the number of strong men men who would take rank in the social, professional and business relations of any community in civilization. Monroe county has evidently drawn largely upon the best blood, brain and experience of the older States. In every department of life may be found men of fine culture and large experience in the best ways of the world, and the stranger who comes here expecting to place the good people of this county in his shadow, will get the conceit effectually taken out of him in about 90 days. They are not a race of barbarians, living a precarious sort of life in the bush, but a brave, magnanimous, intelligent people, who, if their average daily life be sternly realistic in the practical ways of home-building and bread-getting, have yet within and about them so much of the ideal that he is indeed a dull observer who sees not in their relations to the wealth of the grain-fields and herds, and the poetry of the sweet natural landscape, a union of the real and ideal that is yet to make for them the perfect human life. They find ample time for the founding and fostering of schools, the love of books and flowers and art, a cultivation of the social graces, and the building of temples to the spiritual and ideal. Monroe county raises horses and mules and swine, fat steers, and the grain to feed the million, but is none the less a generous almoner of good gifts for her children. She has 108 free schools for white and colored children.

Public morals are guarded and fostered by the presence and influence of churches, representing nearly all the denominations, and are nowhere displayed to better advantage than in the general observance of the Sabbath, and in the honest financial administration of county affairs. There are no repudiators of the public credit and obligation here. They have in a high measure that singular and inestimable virtue called popular conscience, and make it the inexorable rule of judgment and action in all public administration. It is as unchangeable as the law of the Medes and Persians, and though public enterprise has impelled the expenditure of a great deal of money, large sums have also been voted for the building of railways, for county buildings and appointments, and for bridges, with a liberal expenditure for incidental uses, all within little more than a decade; nobody has had the hardihood to even talk repudiation, and Monroe will, we hope, soon be out of debt and the last dollar of her bonded indebtedness be paid.

It is clearly no injustice to other portions of Missouri to pronounce Monroe one of the model counties. She has an untarnished and enviable credit, excellent schools, light taxes, a brave, intelligent population, and presents a picture of material thrift which challenges the admiration of all. There are a score of men in the county worth from $30,000 to $50,000. A few are worth from one to $200,000. Half a hundred more represent from $20,000 to $50,000, and a large number from $15,000 to $20,000, while after these come a good-sized army whose lands and personal estate will range from $10,000 to $15,000. This wealth is not in any sense speculative, for it has been mainly dug out of the soil, and, in a modest degree, represents the half-developed capacity of the grasses and grain fields. It is not in the hands of any speculative or privileged class, but is well distributed over the bounty in lands, homes and herds. It is one of the pleasures of a lifetime to ride for days over this charming region of fine old homes, thrifty orchards, green pastures and royal herds, and remember that the fortunate owners of these noble estates have liberal bank balances to their credit, and are well on the road to honorable opulence. Many of our readers will be inclined to wonder if it is an overcolored sketch of the country and people, and ask for the shady side of the picture. " Are there no poor lands, poor farmers, or poor farming in Monroe county- nothing to criticise, grumble about or find fault with in the ways of the 22,000 people within the range of the latter?" Yes, there is a " shady side " to the picture, and it is easily and quickly sketched fiom life. The scarcity of farm labor is apparent to the most superficial observer. The negroes, who did most of the farm labor under the old compulsory system, have gone almost solidly to the towns, and are no longer a factor in the farm labor problem.

The average farm hand has acquired the easy, slip-shod habits of the slave labor system, and is at best a poor substitute. Four-fifths of the farmers undertake too much, expending in the most superficial way upon 200 or 400 acres the labor which would only well cultivate 100 acres, and the result is seen in shallow plowing, hurried seeding, slight cultivation, careless harvesting, loose stacking, wasteful threshing and reckless waste in feeding. The equally reckless exposure of farm machinery in this county would bankrupt the entire farm population of half a dozen New England counties in three seasons. The visitor in the country is always in sight of splendid reapers, mowers, seeders, cultivators, wagons and smaller implements, standing in the swarth, firrow, fence-corner or yard where last used, and exposed to the storms and sunshine until the improvident owner needs them for further use.

The exposure of flocks and herds to the cold, wet storms of the winter, without a thought of shelter, in a country where nature has bountifully provided the material for, and only trifling labor is required to give ample protection, is a violation of the simplest rule of economy and that kindly human impulse that never fails to be moved by the sight of animal suffering. The astonishing waste of manures by the villainous habit of burning great stacks of straw and leaving rich half century accumulations of manure to the caprice of the elements, may be all right in bountiful old Missouri, but in the older Eastern country would be prima facie evidence of the insanity of the land-owner who permitted the waste. The waste of valuable timber is equally unaccountable, if not really appalling. While economists in the older lands are startled at the rapid approach of the timber famine, and are wondering where the timber supply is to come from a dozen years hen'ce, the farmers of Monroe county and all North Missouri have until recently been splitting elegant young walnut and cherry trees into common rails to inclose lands worth $10 to $25 per acre; cutting them into logs for cabins, pig troughs and sluiceways, and even putting them on the wood market in competition with cheap coals, complaining the while of the cost of walnut furniture brought from factories a thousand miles away.

There are too many big farms here for the good of the overtasked owners or the country. No man can thoroughly cultivate 600, 1,000 or 1,500 acres of land, any more than a country of homeless and landless tenants can be permanently prosperous; and the sooner these broad, unwieldlv estates are broken into small farms and thoroughly cultivated by owners of the soil in fee simple, the better it will be for land values, schools, highways, society, agriculture, trade and every vital interest of the country. Such a consummation would vastly add to the wealth and attractions of this beautiful and fertile region, giving it the graces of art, manifold fruits of production, and universal thrift that attend every country of proprietary small farmers. There is too much speculation and too little work for the benefit of farming or economic living. Everybody is trading with his neighbor in live stock, grain, lands, town lots, options, or anything that promises money without work, forgetting that the country is not a dime the richer for the traffic. Nothing surprises the Eastern visitor as much as the want of appreciation for their country, expressed by so many of the old and substantial farmers of this region. They get the Texas, Kansas or Colorado fever, and talk about selling beautiful farms in this fair and fertile county for the chances of fortune in one of these regions of the immigrant's Utopia, as if they were unconscious of livino in one of the most favored lands upon the green earth. A six weeks' tour of some of the older and less favored States, followed by a trip of critical observation into some of the newer ones, might give these uneasy and unsettled men a spirit of happy content with their present homes and surroundings.

Monroe county has productive capacity great enough to feed a fourth of the population of Missouri, but before its wonderful native resources are developed to the maximum, it must have 20,000 more men to aid in the work. Men for the thorough cultivation of 40, 80 and 120 acre farms; for the modern butter and cheese dairy; skilled fruit growers to plant orchards and vineyards and wine presses; hundreds of sterling young young men from the Northern States, the Canadas and Europe to solve the farm labor problem in a country where reliable labor is scarce and wages high, and skilled artisans to found a hundred new mechanical industries. All these are wanted, nor can they come a day too soon for cordial greeting from the good people of Monroe county, or the precious realization of a great destiny for one of the most inviting regions on the green earth.

Taking the census of 1880 as a basis of calculation and comparison, Monroe county, agriculturally, occupies a place in the front rank of counties, and in some respects it is unrivalled by any other in the State. In 1880 the county produced 3,379,539 bushels of corn, only 12 counties out of the entire number of 114 producing a greater number of bushels than Monroe. The crop averaged 381/2 bushels per acre. We can more fully appreciate the crop of corn raised by Monroe county by a simple comparison.

During the same year California raised 1,993,325 bushels; Colorado, 455,968; Oregon, 126,862; Rhode Island, 372,967; Washington Territory, 39,182; Utah, 163,342; Nevada, 11,891, and District of Columbia, 29,750. Total number of bushels, 3,193,287. It will be seen that Monroe county produced more corn in 1880 than eight States and Territories produced. Take the tobacco crop for the same year. Chariton, Callaway, Carroll, Howard, Macon, Randolph and Saline each raised more tobacco than Monroe. Chariton and Carroll averaged more pounds to the acre than Monroe; the average number of pounds per acre for Monroe was 784, and the entire crop was 421,232 pounds.

As a sheep county, Monroe leads all the counties in the State, the number for 1880 being 32,873; Linn county ranking second, with 32,458. Being the banner sheep county, it would most naturally follow that the wool clipping was greater in pounds, which was a fact, the whole number of pounds of wool being 229,158; Linn county clipped 183,052.

There were nine counties that raised more hogs than Monroe, the number in Monroe being a little less than 65,000. Fourteen counties produced more cattle than Monroe the number for Monroe for that year (1880) being a little less than 30,000.

Twelve counties produced more butter than Monroe, the latter having upwards of 400,000 pounds. Only three counties contained a greater number of horses than Monroe.

The facts and figures which are briefly, but correctly, given above show the following facts:-

That in 1880 only 12 counties in Missouri raised more corn than Monroe, and that Monroe raised more corn than was produced by 8 States and Territories; that 7 counties grew more tobacco than Monroe, but that Monroe averaged a greater number of pounds to the acre than 4 of these counties; that Monroe county raised more sheep than any other county in the State and clipped a greater number of pounds of wool than any other county; that 9 counties contained more hogs than Monroe; 14 counties more cattle; 12 counties made more butter, and 3 counties contained more horses. Taxable wealth from 1874 to 1884- 1875, $4,965,290.00; 1876, $4,904,376.00; 1877, $5,369,522.00; 1878, $5,273,805.00; 1879, $4,234,400.00; 1880, $4,548,160.00; 1881, $4,573,920.00; 1882, $4,871,044.00; 1883, $4,523,170.00.

FRUIT.

Monroe county is one of the best fruit growing counties in the State, and will in a few years equal if not surpass any other county in the production of apples. The apple crop for the winters of 1882-83 amounted to over 100,000 barrels that were shipped to Chicago and the Northern markets, saying nothing of the thousands of bushels that were sold to the local trade and used at home. The apple crop for 1884 promises a greater yield than for any preceding year. The Ben Davis takes the lead; then comes the Genitan, Jonathan, Winesap, Baldwin, Willow Twig, Yellow and White Belle Flower, Parmain, Maiden's Blush, Milan, Newtown Pippin, the Northern Spy and a few other kinds. Small fruits, such as cherries, currants, gooseberries, blackberries, strawberries and raspberries do well, and are not only raised by farmers, but these fruits are to be seen in the yards and gardens of those who live in the towns and villages throughout the county. Grapes, especially the Concord, thrive well, and could be produced in great abundance if there was any market or demand for them away from the county. Pears hit occasionally once every two or three years; peaches do well when they are not injured by cold weather; an ordinary hard winter, however, will kill the trees.