BIOORAPHICAL SKETCH 



OP 



S. D. WILLARD, 



OF GENEVi^, N. Y. 



Michigan horticulturists will gladly see in this volume a portrait of the 

 New York pomologist with Mhom, because of his frequent visits among 

 them, they are most familiar. He has attended many meetings of this 

 society, and at each one he has given freely of his valuable experience and 

 terse, sound advice. His papers read before it have been widely published 

 and distributed in the State and have had a marked effect upon the work 

 of our fruitgrowers. It is no more his great worth as a horticulturist, 

 however, than his alnjunding good nature and genial ways that have 

 endeared him to us. Few men have so rare a combination of qualities 

 which make them an aid and a pleasure as has Mr. Willard, and few are 

 more generous in revealing the methods which have been the source of 

 their success with fruits. He has come to be so much expected, that a 

 meeting which lacks his presence is felt to have sustained a misfortune ; 

 and the warmest of welcomes is ever ready for his coming. 



Mr. 8. D. WiLL.\RD was born and brought up on a farm on the banks of 

 Cayuga lake, where fruitgrowing has ever been regarded as an important 

 interest, and with such surroundings a taste for horticulture was developed 

 at an early age, which in more mature years led him to engage in the 

 nursery business at Geneva, and with it the growing of fruit for com- 

 mercial purposes. 



The success with which the plum was being grown, twenty-five years ago 



in the country adjacent to the Hudson river, attracted the attention of Mr. 



Willard. and induced him to make this a leading feature in his orchard 



work. 



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