PROCEEDINGS OF THE WINTER MEETING, 



HELD IN HILLSDALE, FEBRUARY 11th, 12th, 13th, 1880. 



At Hillsdale, in the month of February of each year, a farmers' institute is 

 held, under the auspices <>}' the county agricultural society. The executive 

 committee of that society extended an invitation to the State Pomological So- 

 ciety to hold its winter meeting in connection with this institute. 



In acceptance of this invitation the joint session of the two societies was 

 called at Underwood's Hall, in the city of Hillsdale, February 11th, 1880. 

 The members of the State Pomological Society were the sruests of the County 

 Agricultural Society. The meeting opened on Wednesday afternoon, February 

 11th, at two o'clock, with President Lyon in the chair. 



COHRESPONDEXCE. 



Under the head of correspondence the Secretary read letters from a number 

 of prominent horticulturists regretting their inability to be present. One from 

 Hon. Emmons Buell, of Kalamazoo, had in it the following characteristic 

 sentence : 



"I am not a little amused sometimes when persons come to me to get information 

 in regard to trees, fruits, and their management. They want I should give them 

 information that will save them hundreds of dollars in their future selection and 

 management of fruit; and when I offer them all I know, and a hundred fold more, 

 in a volume of the transactions of our Society, for the mere pittance of one dollar, 

 they have the graceless impudence to reply that they cannot afford it." 



A letter from Mr. Nathan Shotwell, of Concord, Jackson county, embodied 

 some very sensible thoughts, which are reproduced here, on the 



CARE OF THE ORCHARD. 



The successful cultivation of fruit in Michigan has a greater retinue of 

 obstacles to surmount than that of any other department of labor that requires 

 the cultivation of the soil. The simple possession of land in a good state of 

 cultivation, and the putting of it out to fruit trees, is but the beginning of the 

 cares and anxieties, and the labor and expense necessary to make the enter- 

 prise result in the most successful investments. How often do we observe 

 unskilled people in the business, setting out young trees in meadows and old 

 pastures, and digging holes in the sod just sufficient to inclose the roots, and 

 then after a year or two wonder why so many of their trees have died, and that 

 the balance are so unthrifty. And even others, who have cultivated the soil, 

 mulched and pruned the trees, and have a fine, thrifty orchard, and have made 



