PROCEEDINGS OF KINDRED SOCIETIES. 249 



Louise Bonne de Jersey, and Howell. But the latter is prone to drop its 

 fruit by winds. He prefers two-year trees, but would rather have a good, 

 vigorous yearling than a three-year-old. Cultivate corn or potatoes with 

 the trees the first year; but if they are on turned sod, stir the ground 

 about the trees before the other crop is ready for the cultivator. Prune 

 the young trees to whatever extent is necessary in June. In packing, he 

 would make two grades and culls and send in barrels two bushels and 

 three pecks in size. For sandy land he would prefer dwarfs (Bosc, 

 Duchess and Louis Bonne de Jersey) with a load of clay to each, setting a 

 rod or fourteen feet apart. 



Mr. Hopkins would place them but twelve feet apart. 



Jason Carpenter of Shelby set, thirty years ago, in sandy land, several 

 dwarf pears, hoping to get fruit early; but all those which did not root 

 from the pear died because the scions grew so much faster than the quince 

 root. 



Mr. LaFleur's choice, for the main crop, next to Bartlett, is Flemish 

 Beauty, and this is generally the judgment of growers is his vicinity. 



Mr. Phillips: It is the only sort which succeeds on the sandy lands 

 about Grand Haven. 



Mr. Quackenboss: With me it cracks on heavy soil. 



Mr. Ilgenfritz: Flemish Beauty, Clapp, and Bartlett are in all ways 

 the standard pears throughout the northwestern United States. One half 

 of all our sales is of these. 



To this Mr. Darrow agreed, adding that Anjou and Seckel are next in 

 order. 



Mr. A. C. Merritt of Casco read the following paper, adding various 

 observations as he went along, on 



COMMERCIAL PEACH-GROWING IN MICHIGAN. 



" It has been said that every subject in the universe is linked in such 

 wise unto others, that before some single thesis could be taken and fol- 

 lowed out in all its branches, the wandering thinker would be lost in the 

 pathless forest of existence. 



Now, I don't want to lose myself, or get you outside of the branches of 

 the peach business, or the peach belt. But as I was asked in a letter from 

 our good brother, the secretary, to treat the subject as fully as possible, 

 from my standpoint, giving both sides a thorough airing, I am constrained 

 to confess that I felt far more like running away than appearing here to 

 tell so many of you what yoa already know better than myself. 



Within " the visual line that girts me round," many of you certainly 

 have made as thorough a canvass as myself. However, I had given my 

 promise and could get no release. 



Commercial peach-growing in Michigan, like any good business, should 

 be predicated upon the reasonable probabilities of success, over and above 

 the rational probabilities of failure. Because a man that depends on his 

 business to make and maintain his home, and to meet his varied respon- 

 sibilities, next to seeking first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, 

 he should see to it that the character of the business is useful, that its 

 foundations are well laid; worth the cost; and that they have in them a 

 reasonable warrant for the fulfillment, in a good degree, of the ends in 

 view. For a man may not consider his business a thing apart from him- 

 self, as though it touched only his pocket. A business may be such, and 



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