214 STATE HORTICULTURAL. SOCIETY. 



one way or the other will make but little difference, and the conditions may 

 make it a rational one. 



The methods here recommended have been found valuable in our own 

 orchards and are used by the most successful fruitgrowers of the state. 

 Believing that no iron-clad rule will answer for all cases we have frequently 

 outlined two or more methods of procedure and, as we have stated the con- 

 ditions that would influence our selection, trust that the grower will have 

 no difficulty in making a rational choice. 



THE PEACH AND ITS CULTIVATION. 



While it is probable that the peach was grown in Michigan at a much 

 earlier date by the Indians and the early French settlers, the first well- 

 authenticated planting of peach trees in the state was by a Mr. Burnett 

 in Berrien county about 1809, some of which were alive in 1830.* As 

 early as 1835 the peach crop of Berrien county began to be of commercial 

 importance locally, and in 1839 the first peaches were sent to Chicago 

 market from St. Joseph. From that time the planting gradually increased, 

 not only in Berrien county, but it extended northward along the shore of 

 lake Michigan and in favorable locations in the interior counties. In 

 1874 there were more than 650,000 peach trees in Berrien county, but the 

 scourge of " yellows " destroyed most of the orchards and spread into 

 the adjoining counties. As a method of holding the disease in check has 

 been found, confidence in the crop as a commercial venture has returned, 

 and in the county of Berrien alone it is estimated that 200,000 peach trees 

 will be planted in the spring of 1894, while large areas will be set in other 

 sections. 



In favorable locations the peach has shown itself a profitable crop, and 

 in the words of C. D. Lawton of Lawton, '* It is an undoubted fact that 

 the production of peaches in western Michigan, when circumstances are 

 favorable and the cultivator skilled in his work, is one of the most profit- 

 able branches of agricultural industry pursued in the United States," while 

 another well-known Michigan horticulturist has said in speaking of this 

 fruit: " The peach is the most delicious, the most beautiful, and the most 

 profitable of all our fruits, and nowhere on this continent is it grown to 

 greater perfection than here in Michigan." 



By the " Michigan peach belt " a tract from five to ten miles in width, 

 extending from St. Joseph to Grand Haven, was originally meant, but the 

 " belt " has in recent years both lengthened and broadened, as some of the 

 orchards that have been most profitable are located in Oceana, Mason, and 

 Grand Traverse counties, and even as far north as Charlevoix (Lat. 45° 

 30') they are grown with considerable certainty. Not only are there 

 orchards which have produced profitable crops in favorable locations scat- 

 tered all over the lake shore counties, but they can be found in nearly 

 every county south of Montcalm (Lat. 43°), and during the past few years 

 the climatic conditions have been such that, in many sections in the 

 interior of the state, the crop has been nearly as sure as in the famed 

 " peach belt " itself. It must be understood, however, that these orchards 

 are in exceptionally favorable localities and that while they may succeed 

 upon one acre, there will be a thousand where not only the crop, but the 

 trees themselves, will be destroyed in any except the more favorable sea- 

 sons. With a proper selection of a location, especially if the ameliorating 



* Winslow's History of St. Joseph. 



