H 



who early emigrated from "Western New York to Ohio, thence to central Indi- 

 ana, and from thence to this county, where he was in advance of any other 

 in sowing the seeds and planting the varieties, the fruits of which this day 

 has been spread before you. He rests from his labors, and has a place amongst 

 a few honored names in that standard work, Downing's American Fruit Book. 

 Many various and important reasons might be urged, gentlemen, why the 

 cultivation of the best fruits should here be greatly extended. A full supply 

 for home consumption would add greatly to our happiness, and be one of the 

 best presei'vatives of health from the malaria wliich at times surrounds us. 

 We have a climate and soil that will ripen to perfection all the various fruits 

 of the temperate zone. The Newtown Pippin, the Yirgulieu Pear, and many 

 other fruits of the first excellence which aie failing in the eastern States, and 

 are there mourned over as lost, as old worn out varieties, may here be seen 

 blushing in all their pristine excellence, and produced too, by the easiest and 

 most careless cultivation. 



Many in that less favored region are procuring at great expense, the various 

 chemical analyses of their fruits and trees, that they may restore, although at 

 great expense, to the soils of their orchards those necessary elementary con- 

 stituents of which they have long been exhausted ; and the prices returned 

 from the sales of a tree and others, well evince how amply science can be re- 

 warded, in combating the various difficulties of their fruit position. More, 

 however, in that region begin to admit that their Pomona's occupation is 

 gone, and begin to turn their eyes to the virgin soils of the west for their 

 supply of fruits ; and the prices offered in the eastern markets for the best 

 selections, from the best varieties, would surprise any one who had not previ- 

 ously investigated the subject. Besides, see in the central position of Indi- 

 ana, witli her navigable waters, and the means of transportation now being 

 constructed in eveiy direction around, the best facilities, the easiest, safest, 

 and cheapest access to all the other markets of the Union, the copper mines, 

 Minnesota and New Orleans. We need never fear that these various markets 

 will soon be glutted by the production of good fruit. The demand for such 

 ever has, in all countries, exceeded the supply. Should such, hovever, ever 

 be the case, modes of preservation have already been discovered, by which 

 the various fruits of Massachusetts and New York, of the gi'owth of 1851, 

 have already been sent and tested in their full ripened freshness and excel- 

 lence in the markets of Loudon, of Cuba, and of San Francisco. 



In view of all this, and of much more that our limited time will not allow 

 us to mention, your committee would recommend to the farmers of Elkhart 

 county, no longer to allow the cultivation of fruit to be one of the subordi- 

 nate appendages of their agricultural operations. Let them avail themselves 

 of the instructions sought to be conveyed by the writings of a Downing, a 

 Thomas, a Barry, and other horticulturists of the age. Plant and cultivate 

 largely the various fruits, adopting them among the staples of their produc- 

 tions, and they will have the exceeding satisfaction of beautifying with their 

 orchards the whole face of the country, adding largely to the saleable value 

 of their farms, and of annually receiving a sum total for their products, such 



