AMONG THE ORCHARDS AND VINE- 

 YARDS OF MICHIGAN. 



BY H. DALE ADAMS OF GALESBURG. 



THE ENGLE OKCHAEDS. 



On the first day of September, 1874, at Columbus Engle's, near Paw Paw, in 

 Van Buren county, the work of the Orchard Committee began. Mr. Englehad 

 four entries for examination ; two peach orchards, one pear, and one quince. 

 Leaving the Michigan Central railroad at Lawton, through the kindness of 

 Mr. F. M. Manning, superintendent of the Paw Paw road, we were dropped at 

 the Engle crossing a few rods from the farm dwelling. The first notable object 

 that met our eye on stepping from the car was the Willard Observatory on the 

 grounds of the Paw Paw cemetery, occupying the highest point in the cemetery 

 grounds, and erected by Isaac Willard, an early settler of that locality. It is an 

 octagon shaft, thirty feet in diameter at the base, and one hundred and thirty- 

 two feet in height to the cupola, and built on an eminence nearly, if not the 

 highest, in Van Buren county, it commands a view of the surrounding country 

 as far as the eye can reach. I speak of this only because it is at this place, and 

 at an elevation co-equal, that the Engle orchards are to be found, and from 

 this observatory Mr. Engle informed us he could point out nearly all the loca- 

 tions suitable for orchard purposes for many miles around. 



The peach orchard in class 8 was first examined, and here we found Mr. 

 Engle in the midst of his luscious Crawfords, picking at the rate of 400 boxes 

 of one-third of a bushel each per day. The location of these orchards deserves 

 more than a passing notice, and consists of a series of hills or knolls, mostly of 

 only a few acres in extent, with deep valleys intervening, and leading in the 

 direction of every point of the compass. Only the higher positions were occu- 

 pied with the peach. The valleys and most of the hills near the base were 

 planted to the apple, the pear, and the quince. The soil is what would be termed 

 a gravelly loam, with sufficient clay to give it substance and not enough to in- 

 terfere with perfect drainage. In the opinion of the committee no soil can be 

 found better adapted to the peach than the soil of these orchards. The first 

 orchard consisted of 900 trees planted twelve years, and about equally divided 

 between Early Crawfords and the Barnard. Thorough cultivation has its re- 

 ward here — not a weed to be seen, the whole orchard as mellow as the best of 

 fallow prepared for a wheat crop. Shallow plowing in the spring and after- 

 wards the two-horse wheel cultivator has done the work. Three times each 



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