PROCEEDINGS OP THE WINTER MEETING. 47 



perfection, and were I permitted to speak of our fruit interests I should 

 say that a similar state of affairs exists; from the highest hills to the low- 

 est valleys, every kind of fruit indigenous to this latitude grows in abund- 

 ance and thrift, making the "horn of plenty " full to overflowing. 



Within the gates of the busy Valley City are stabled thousands of horses, 

 manure is cheap and abundant, and in some instances barns that make 

 three hundred loads per year can be secured for drawing it away. Most of 

 our large cities are situated with a body of water on one side of them; this 

 drives the building a long way out in other directions, thereby compelling 

 growers to carry on their business at a distance from the city. Seeing a 

 wagon loaded with manure in Chicago the other day, I asked the driver 

 how far he hauled his load. " Sixteen miles," said he. Our growers 

 declare it does not pay to haul seven miles. Why is it? The only answer 

 is, superior advantages make them look at it that way. Nearly all the 

 gardening around Grand Rapids is within a radius of five miles from the 

 city. 



HOLLANDERS MONOPOLIZE THE BUSINESS. 



But chief among the causes for the present state of development in 

 market gardening around Grand Rapids, and in fact for all western Mich- 

 igan, is the class of people into whose hands the business has fallen. On 

 October 2, 1846, the first band of Hollanders destined to form a colony in 

 Michigan set sail on the ship " Southerner." It was the intention of their 

 leader, the faithful A. C. Van Raalte, to locate in Wisconsin, but deten- 

 tion in their pilgrimage caused their leader to select western Michigan for 

 the colony. Here they settled and after a time prospered. Professor 

 Calvin Thomas of the Michigan University shows by the following table 

 the rate of increase of Hollanders in Michigan: 



1851-1860 10,689 



1861-1870 9,539 



1871-1880 17,236 



1881-1888 43,916 



There are now over 100,000 Hollanders in the United States, nearly half 

 of them in western Michigan. No other class of foreigners are so natur- 

 ally adapted for settlement and prosperity in subduing • both swamp and 

 forest as are Hollanders, but it is chiefly due to their indomitable perse- 

 verance and contentment that the thousands of acres of seemingly unap- 

 proachable bog have been converted into the choicest garden lauds. 



Beginning around Grand Rapids and traveling in a southwesterly 

 direction to Holland, thence up the lake shore as far as Muskegon, the 

 whole country is now rapidly passing into the hands of the Hollanders. 



What has become of our earlier American and English growers? Many 

 have gone south, some to California, and those remaining have sought a 

 higher branch, that of horticulture under glass. In this branch Grand 

 Rapids leads all other cities in the west. Our growers are thoroughly 

 active men and produce goods that sell in competition with any of the 

 larger cities. Grand Rapids is as proud of her contiguous greenhouse 

 business as she is of any of her varied wholesale pursuits. 



