424 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



many varieties it is very annoying to keep them separate, as to do so requires 

 more room for storing, etc., and adds greatly to the labor and expense of 

 marketing. Better if our crops were of a few leading varieties than to be 

 bothered with twenty bushels of this, ten bushels of that, five bushels of the 

 other, and so on. 



Besides, giving premiums to the largest number of varieties encourages a 

 few unscrupulous persons to procure their fruit of other growers and exhibit it 

 as their own. In this county about one-third of the amount given in premiums 

 is offered in this objectionable manner, and the consequence is a sort of "scrub 

 race" to see who will drive the furthest and pick up the most. Fruit-growers 

 who are in the main honest are effectually ruled out. Can our agricultural 

 societies afford to award premiums that in effect encourage rascality? 



There is but one argument in favor of this practice — it makes it easy for the 

 judges to decide who is entitled to premiums. Any one who can count is 

 competent for this. If it is considered absolutely necessary to give a premium 

 for the "largest collections" of apples, pears, etc., the amount so offered 

 should be reduced. Let the man who tries to grow fruit of the finest quality 

 have a chance also. — Nelson Hitter, in Rural New Yorker. 



HURON COUNTY FOR FRUIT. 



We wish the special adaptation of Huron county for the growing of fruit on 

 a large scale were more generally known amongst those practical in such busi- 

 ness. A study of its situation, with the deep waters of Lake Huron and Sagi- 

 naw bay surrounding it on three sides, ought to convince all who understand, 

 the ameliorating influence of water upon climate that these shores would be 

 especially favorable for fruit. The winters are never so cold here as in the 

 interior and southern parts of the State. The isothermal charts prepared by 

 Prof. Alexander Winchell, published in the atlas of the State, show that the 

 January temperature of this point is the same as that of Fort Wayne, Ind., the 

 great fruit belt on the western shore of the State, Bloomington, 111., and 

 Northern Missouri. Barely does the thermometer mark zero — not once during 

 the past winter — while during twelve years of personal knowledge we have only 

 once known the mercury to sink to ten below. These bodies of water have a 

 most beneficial effect in averting frosts botli in the spring or fall, so that there 

 is rarely any failure of the fruit from this cause. In such a climate not only 

 the hardy apple and plum but the tender peach and grape can be most 

 successfully grown. 



This is not a matter of theory but of fact. It is being demonstrated yearly, 

 though on a comparatively small scale, that nowhere can the fruits named be 

 produced in greater abundance or perfection than here. Some, through igno- 

 rance or neglect, have been disappointed in the slight effort to obtain an orchard, 

 but the fault is neither with the climate or soil. As an earnest of what can be 

 done, we would invite an inspection of the trees in the various gardens of this 

 village. A few days since a gentleman familiar with the great orchards of 

 western Michigan, after looking through several of these — and especially that 

 of W. H. Cooper, where intelligent care and enthusiastic love for his trees are 

 united — acknowledged that he had never seen anything superior, and expressed 



