HISTORY OF MICHIGAN HORTICULTURE. 237 



Within the recollection of the old residents, the Saginaw Indians made an 

 annual journey to Maiden, Canada, to receive presents from the British govern- 

 ment, and these journeys were generally made by way of the Indian trail, 

 accompanied by their ponies and dogs, while the poorer "Nitches" went in 

 canoes, following the shore from Saginaw to Detroit. The orchards, both on 

 the Canada and American side of Detroit river, bore large crops of fruit, and 

 the Indians, who were proverbially hungry, without doubt often filled them- 

 selves with the tempting apples. It would be nothing strange if some were 

 put away among their baggage, and when brought back in their canoes, there 

 being bearing apple trees at that time on the trail as far as Pontiac, a few might 

 possibly have found their way to Saginaw by this route. The improvident 

 nature of the Indians will not permit us to give them any credit of ever carry- 

 ing apple seeds any distance with this design, that after waiting ten or fifteen 

 years they would have the enjoyment of eating the fruit of them. Much sooner 

 would I believe that the seeds from which their trees grew were transported in 

 the stomachs of those journeying Indians than any other way, as they were in 

 more ways than one bipeds of passage. My reasons for these conclusions are 



First, These apple trees do not have the appearance of ever having any care 

 taken of them ; 



Second, The fruit resembles the apples of the old French orchards on the 

 Detroit river in their appearance and quality ; 



Third, The Indians, who were too indolent to build good shelter to protect 

 themselves and families from the inclement weather, might plant a little corn, 

 when but a few weeks would intervene between the planting and the green-corn 

 dance, but nothing that I have ever seen in the prudential motives of the 

 Indians of former days could induce me to believe that the combined fore- 

 thought of the whole Saginaw band or tribe would ever amount to the setting 

 out of an apple orchard. I conclude, therefore, that the seeds from which 

 these trees grew were carried to their respective locations in the stomachs of 

 the Indians in their migrations from place to place, and after being discovered 

 were, without doubt, in some measure protected by the squaws, who are the 

 laboring class of the tribe, until their growth was assured. 



The exact date of the first bearing apple tree of the Indian orchard is 

 impossible to state here, but it would not be among the impossibilities to 

 presume that it was some time previous to 1800, as there are several squaws 

 and Indians whose recollections go back distinctly to the war of 1812, and at 

 that time there were many apple trees which were full size and bore large 

 crops of fruit every year. This would at least bring their origin previous to 

 1800 several years or more, and it is not at all unlikely that there were seeds 

 deposited, and trees grown from them, as far back as the middle of the eight- 

 eenth century. The naturally fertile soil along the river banks in Saginaw 

 county seems by these facts to be the native home of all kinds of our native 

 fruits, where they will grow in luxuriance and abundance, and repay the grower 

 in ten, fifty and one hundred fold for his labor. 



VAN BUREN COUNTY. 

 BY A. C. GLIDDEN. 



Michigan begins to feel the weight of years. Its older portions are just 

 realizing that they have an unwritten history. Incidents and matters of fact, 

 recognized at the time as of slight importance, are now becoming historical. 



