PROCEEDINGS OF THE SUMMER MEETING. 55 



reported to be from 30 per cent, to a nearly full one. Further south in the 

 belt, on down to Berrien county, the crop is in a number of places reported 

 nearly a full one where unharmed by the canker-worm. The reports from 

 Washtenaw, Barry, Clinton, Eaton, Kalamazoo, Calhoun, and Lenawee 

 are of almost total failure save in isolated cases, the summer fruit showing 

 a little better. None of these counties report enough apples for home 

 consumption, and, save pears, there will be not much fruit of any kind for 

 export. It seems plain that buyers of winter apples will have to look for 

 them in the western portion of the state, from the southern line up to the 

 Traverse region, but need scarcely go further than fifty miles eastward 

 from lake Michigan. 



Within this region there has been a very fine crop of Oldenberg, while 

 Hed Astrachan has quite generally failed. Reports of full bearing are 

 made of Baldwin, Spy, Ben Davis, Rhode Island Greening, Johnathan, 

 Hubbardston, and in some cases small young trees of Wagener. 



Many writers speak of the old orchards as unfruitful, but one reporter, 

 the owner of 4,003 bearing trees, Mr. S. Smith of Watervliet, says his 

 plantings of 30 to 40 years ago are bearing best. But it is safe to say that 

 none of Mr. Smith's trees are of the sort seen in the old orchards of the 

 average farm. The causes of the unfruitfulness are generally conceded to 

 be the "blight" or scab of the two preceding years, cold weather at the 

 blossoming season and immediately afterward, and the prevailing drouth of 

 the past two months. There is a general averment that spraying with Bor- 

 deaux mixture was highly efficacious wherever persisted in, subduing scab 

 upon both fruit and foliage. But while many who used this spray met 

 with partial failure from heavy rains, the success of many others must cer- 

 tainly cause greatly increased use of Bordeaux mixture hereafter. Indeed, 

 so well settled is belief in its efficacy that one correspondent, Mr. W. F. 

 Bird of Ann Arbor, paraphrases Poor Richard's rhyme about thrift at the 

 plow thus: 



" Whoever hopes success to crown 

 Must either work the pump or drown." 



Possibly some in California or elsewhere, where the annual production 

 of every sort of fruit is carefully noted and compiled, will wonder what is 

 the meaning of the phrase, " thirty to seventy per cent, of a full crop." 

 But no one in Michigan can tell him " within forty rows of apple trees." 

 The agricultural and horticultural statistics of Michigan are ludicrous in 

 both their meagreness and their inaccuracy. These statistics are gathered 

 by supervisors when taking the annual assessment. At first they exer- 

 cised some care, but latterly have become quite neglectful of the duty, 

 until the annual compilation of their reports, by the secretary of state, 

 has become almost valueless. So we will go back to earlier and better 

 years for some approximate figures. In 1883 there was a good crop of 

 apples in Michigan, and it was reported to have been 1,364,202 barrels. 

 If we accept this as reasonably correct, and assume that, as my returns 

 show, one third of the acreage of that year is this year producing forty 

 per cent, of a crop, we have 176,420 barrels as the crop of 1894 available 

 for sale at home and abroad. But I regret to say no one can tell anything 

 definite about the matter. My opinion is that our merchantable crop this 

 year will be more than double 176,000 barrels, but it is all guesswork. 



We are able much better to approximate the yield of peaches. By stat- 

 istics of shipment by rail and water from Allegan county, in 1893, it was 



