FORTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT. 13 



Mr. A. E. Williams read papers on celery culture. It was at about this 

 time that celery growino- l)ej?an here. The extensive marshes along 

 Muskegon Kiver and other smaller streams proved to be excellent soil 

 for this crop and by the year 1893, Muskegon celery had gained a great 

 reputation in the Chicago market, which I believe it has held to this 

 day. 



The production of peppermint oil, was at one time an industry of 

 considerable importance in Moorland townshii* where the black sand 

 and loamy soil was fgund well adapted to the cro]). With fall in price 

 of the oil the industry dwindled near to extinction, but I am told that, 

 with current price of the oil, it is possible to renew the business with 

 profit, and a revival is predicted. It is said that before the growers 

 went out of the business the lauds on which mint liad been grown for 

 some years were showiug symptoms of exhaustion, and that if the crop 

 were to be gi-<)wn again successfully a sysleui ot rotation will need be 

 adopted. 



In the 1887 annual of Muskegon County Pioneer and Historical So- 

 ciety it is recorded that Michael Crowley of Muskegon township receiv- 

 ed from J. H. Gregory, of INIarblehead, Mass., the prizes olfered for the 

 largest cabbages grown in the United States in the yeavii 188G and 1887. 

 The cabbage of the latter year weighed 8II/2 11»^- with stump and loose 

 leaves. Patrick Dowd, who became known as the "Cabbage King" ex- 

 hibited, at the horticultural fair in 188G, three cabbage heads trimmed 

 for market, weighing res])ectively 42, 43, and 41) pounds. These were 

 grown on a moist, loamy soil. 



In 1887, an estimate of the onions raised in Moorland township was 

 25,000 bushels. This I suspect is more than the amount raised there 

 in any season recentl3^ 



3. I have passed thus brietly over the history of horticulture in the 

 county as a record of the ])eople and what they have attained. I leave 

 this portion of my i)aper with apologies to the old settlers who might 

 have done the ]>art much better and take up the third division of my 

 subject for which L have more abundant data and a feeling of greater 

 securit,y in my conclusions. 



What human kind has been able to do here as elsewhere in horti- 

 culture and agriculture has been largely determined by processes of 

 nature in times antedating human experience. Little need be said of 

 the climate except that it is what should be expected at this latitude, 

 modified by the great water body, Lake Michigan. Everybody knows 

 that we are in the fruit belt of western Michigan. The soil, however, 

 unlike the climate, has no necessary relation to the Jatitude and the 

 proper study of the same is somewhat intricate. 



Ages ago natural forces began their work of preparing for Muskegon 

 county, soils of considerable variet3^ When the soil materials had be- 

 come settled in their places, plant life began its contentions for occu- 

 pation and after a long term of struggle and adjustment, more than one 

 thousand si)ecies of ]tlants of the higher orders found congenial places 

 for growth upon the hills and plains; in the valleys, swamps, marshes 

 and lakes. Here the first civilized invaders of the wilderness found 



