220 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



in importance as to quantity, quality, variety, and system of handling, until 

 now, when the profits and the pleasure of the business of horticulture have 

 become very great in very many of the States of the Union. 



Now as to Barry county : In 1835 Calvin G. Hill settled on what is now the 

 crossing of the two main streets of Middleville, and Henry Leonard about one 

 mile north on the Thornapple river, and the next year, 1836, planted the first 

 apple and cherry trees, each in the same year. About 1837 William Bassett 

 and William Lewis set small orchards in Yankee Springs township; William 

 Bassett sowed some apple seed in 1837, which was the first nursery, so far as I 

 am able to learn, in Barry county. 



To condense matters, the first orchard set in Barrv county at Middleville was 

 in 183G; Yankee Springs, 1837; Johnstown, "l837; Woodland, 1841; 

 Hastings, 1840 ; Prairieville, 1839. The first nursery was planted in Y"ankee 

 Springs by sowing apple seed, 1837, and in Prairieville. 1839. A second 

 nursery set in Prairieville in 1841 was the first grafted fruit planted in the 

 county grafted in the root. These grafts were obtained from Monroe, Michi- 

 gan. The varieties were the Russet, Baldwin, Spitzenburg, Swaar, Early 

 Harvest and Seek-no-further. Old trees in this county are healthy on the 

 highlands and on clay soil, but on the lowlands and river bottoms the old trees 

 are not healthy, which is mostly chargeable to severe winters a few years since, 

 followed by a series of dry summers. 



As to later work, Elisha Kellogg planted two nurseries in the township of 

 Irving in 1844, and sold largely from them for several years. Those nurseries 

 were made up of choice varieties of grafted fruit, but are now sold out and 

 there is no nursery of importance in this county. 



First fruit exported from this county was in 1859, by Jeptha Parish, from 

 Yankee Springs, a very fine quantity and quality of Baldwin apples. 



We have had no serious destruction of fruit by insects in this county. The 

 codling moths in fruit and borers in trees have done some damage, but no very 

 destructive plagues have attacked the fruit in this county. There is now quite 

 a large quantity of small fruit grown in this county. 



CALHOUN COUNTY. 



Robert Church, late of the township of Marengo, Calhoun county, settled 

 upon his farm, two miles east of the city of Marshall, in 1836. "One of the 

 first steps taken by this enterprising farmer was to clear off six or eight acres 

 of oak ojoenings and set out an apple and peach orchard." The trees were 

 obtained at Ypsilanti. Soon thereafter he brought from St. Joseph county 

 300 seedling apple trees to commence a nursery. These trees must have been 

 very small, as he "backed them in." This was the nucleus of the first 

 nursery in Calhoun county, and from it was disseminated the first plantings in 

 what are now large, old orchards. 



Yours, etc., 0. C. Comstock. 



EATON COUNTY. 

 REPORTED BY ESEK PRAY. 



J. C Woodbury, of Bellevue, was the proprietor of the first nursery in the 

 southwest part of the county ; Jesse Hart, of Brookfield, in the south part of 

 the county, still living, brought apple seed with him in the fall of 1837, put 



