SOCIETY OF NOETHEEN ILLINOIS. 238 



The trip was to St. Joe, Mich., aud afterward to a trip down the 

 Illinois Central to Cairo, with '' Rural," as a guide, who had influence 

 enough with that company to give horticulturists an excursion. 

 There were some choice spirits about, "not omitting representatives 

 of the Chicago press; Jonathan Periam was there of the Prairie 

 Fanner; Charlie Reitz, then a studious j^oung man in the way of 

 bugs, now famous the world over; Professor Walsh, C. R. Overman, 

 0. B. Galusha, H. D. Emery, Col. Pearson, of Onarga, Dr. Hull, 

 M. L. Dunlap and others. It was a royal time among the fruit 

 growers of the time. Latchstrings were all out as they used to be; 

 Centralia was then quite a point. Champaign and Urbana were not 

 forgotten, but the great place was South Pass; it was then in high 

 feathers with a boundless future. The great pear orchards were 

 then being put out; strawberries already a feature. It was a joyous 

 time and a red-letter day with, at least, one of the party, and he 

 rather a florist than a fruiterer or nurseryman. But we were all 

 birds of a feather. 



Then, again, the memories of great baskets from old St. Joe, 

 Michigan, afterwards Centralia, and South Pass, in its prime 

 twenty years ago or so. There are yet peaches and peaches, but I am 

 fastidious in some things, and enjoy these things just ripe from the 

 bough. A vast cjuantity now sold as peaches are little better than 

 the knot of a tree. Why, even the once plentiful common red 

 cherry was everywhere around this part of the country ; worms came 

 along and despoiled them. Nobody seems to think of trying them 

 again. Everything seems to go by specialties. Take celery. One 

 time a patch of a few hundreds was a big thing, a few thousands, 

 wonderful ! Presently, say fifteen or twenty years ago, around where 

 I come from, north of Chicago, the land was found just suitable. 

 The Germans, mostly, kept increasing their patches, until there were 

 two or three hundred acres. Although the price dropped some, 

 extended markets were found : the prices were still remunerative. 

 Celery was up. In a little while a sort of wheezy cry came that 

 Kalamazoo was growing celery. " Ah !" the South Water street 

 men said, '' can't beat Lake View celery"; but it kept coming in, 

 and better and better. Prices drop. With the now thousands of 

 acres around that city. Lake View men hear something drop ; then, 

 as the old saying goes, " their nose is out of joint." The celery is 

 down high prices spoiled their appetite, not a few pulled up stakes 

 and hied to California; and now, after blocking the Chicago market 

 and the New York market, the growers there are in a bad way. The 

 next thing we will have to bear is a celery trust. They have tried it 

 in Ohio in cabbage, in Georgia in watermelons ; but, unlike trusts 

 in other walks of life, they do not seem to help much anything that 

 comes from the soil. Perhaps it is well it is so. 



My point is that if fruit growing is not general outside of the 



