SUM]\IEIl MEETING, 1882. 03 



Mr. Smith, of Berrien : I understand that Mr. Panucrlec started peaches 

 in tlic Grand Traverse region, arguing that it was as salubrious a climate 

 there as iu St. Jo, but a few liard winters demonstrated tiie faultiness of his 

 theory. 



Mr. Ilubbcll : Gentlemen, say what you please, we do raise peaches of ex- 

 cellent quality in the Grand Traverse region; and despite what has been said 

 concerning Mr. Parmcrlee's venture in Jienzio county, we can raise peaches as 

 a commercial enterprise and succeed admirable if you will only keep your 

 yellows away from us. 



Mr. Tracy: I was quite familiar with Mr. Parnierlee's peach orchard that 

 Vt'as ruined by the cold winter, but claim that had that same orchard been 

 located any where along our lake sliore that winter disaster would have over- 

 taken it. No peach orchard that makes an annual growth of four or five feet 

 and continues growing until winter sets in can withstand a degree of cold that 

 very often is experienced along the whole length of our shore, and this peach 

 orchard of Mr. Parnierlee's went into winter in this shape and of course was 

 ruined. 



Mr. Heath, of Muskegon, explained how he had succeeded in Oakland county 

 in hardening peach trees by periodical pinching in August and September, so 

 that an orchard tliere had borne crops for over twenty years, having come 

 through all the hard winters in good shape. 



Following this discussion, President Lyon being called out, read the follow- 

 ing paper on 



WILD FEUITS AND THEIR IMPEOVEMENT. 



In considering this subject we may at the outset remark that the peculiar- 

 ities of our climate, growing out of our semi-insular situation, have doubtless 

 had very much to do with the original enforesting of the State, and that 

 the forest growths through their sheltering influence have, in their turn, 

 supplied the conditions requisiie to the success, not to say the existence even, 

 of many of our indigenous wild fruits. 



We may add, also that our climate, so far as humidity and extremes of 

 temperature are concerned, is so modified as to become the equivalent for sev- 

 eral degrees of additional latitude southward, adapting our State to the pro- 

 duction of many of the products of Central Kentucky and northward. Owing 

 to these favoring circumstances and the great length of the State from north 

 to south, the number of our indigenous wild fruits is found to be very large, 

 while the modifications of many of them consequent upon the varied influ- 

 ences of climate and soils, operating through indefinite periods in the past, 

 have in many instances provided the best possible material to which to apply 

 effectively the more modern processes of scientific amelioration. 



To apply such process in the case of a wild fruit possessing the fixity oi 

 character of our native crab apple {pyrus coronaria), for instance, can offer 

 little prospect of desirable results in the near future unless, perchance, some 

 not too remote member of its family can be brought to hybridize with it. On 

 the otlier hand a fruit which, like the blackberry {ruhus villosus), or the black 

 cap {R. occidentalis), indulges spontaneously iu its wild condition in varia- 

 tions or sports, becomes hopeful subjects for the application of the process, 

 whether of hybridization or otherwise, by means of which nature operates iu 

 the work of amelioration. 



In the study of our native fruits with reference to such purpose, we will no 



