18 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



recovery, but we now grow small fruit by the boatload, ten to twenty car- 

 loads to the boatload, but the owners of the boats will not tell how much 

 they do carry. Nor is the acreage of all sorts known, but we have cer- 

 tainly 10,000 acres of strawberries, and probably an equal area of rasp- 

 berries and blackberries, besides great quantities of other fruits. During 

 the last few years, Berrien has set great quantities of peach trees, till we 

 have as many as any other county, though not so many in bearing. The 

 last decade was more favorable to fruit trees and plants, as a rule, than 

 the preceding two decades, being of milder weather, of not so severe 

 winters. The fruit area of the county has greatly increased during the 

 last three or four years, extending back to Niles and south to New Buffalo, 

 but we have as yet no reliable statistics of either the acreage or the total 

 product. Last year was very disastrous to the apple crop, yet there never 

 was a year when fruitgrowers were on the whole more prosperous. 



Mr. U. B. Webster: I have been here fourteen years, coming from 

 southwestern Missouri to grow peaches, yet the first thing I did was to 

 pull out peach trees because of yellows. But for the past three years I 

 have had peaches, and there are in my town of Fairplain many trees that 

 are sound and promising. The trees have come through the winter all 

 right and no doubt will produce abundantly this season. The Messrs. 

 PuLLEN, when peaches went, turned to small fruits, and made money, and 

 we all followed them, but now we have turned back to peaches again, and 

 believe we shall be highly successful. 



Mr. R. Morrill: I know nothing in the way of fruit trees and plants 

 but is in a very hopeful state for the coming season, except the apples, 

 which scarcely can be in good order because of blight of the foliage last 

 season. There are a few exceptions to this, such as the Spy, Hubbardston, 

 and Oldenberg, whose leaves seem to have better withstood the fungus. 

 Peach trees are in excellent condition; strawberries and small fruits have 

 been under the snow, and unless we shall yet have very severe weather 

 they will come out all right. Of peach trees, there were 300,000 in the 

 region tributary to Benton Harbor, two years ago, and 200,000 more in 

 the vicinity of St. Joseph; many were planted last spring and still more 

 will be set this year. 



Mr. W. H. Miller: Fruit buds are as good as they have ever been, of 

 all kinds in the vicinity of Berrien Springs. Many peach trees have been 

 set in the last two years, and we have a great many pears, grapes, and 

 apples, all of which are believed to be in good order in every way, except 

 the apples, which suffered so severely by blight last year. But besides the 

 kinds named by Mr. Morrill, I find the Keswick Codlin to have resisted 

 the blight. 



