138 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Dr. Underwood was too ill to accompany ns. A sandwich and a cnp of coffee 

 suflHced for a breakfast, and aboard the train for Monroe, where we arrived in 

 time for a substantial dinner at the hospitable mansion of I. E. Ijgenfritz, who 

 is the nursery king of the State. 



THE MOKROE XURSERIES. 



The Messrs. Ilgenfritz had entered a general nursery in class 41. Directly in 

 front and adjoining the Michigan Southern railroad depot are the extensive 

 packing houses and ornamental grounds of this establishment. A description 

 of the buildings and grounds may not be inappropriate here : The main pack- 

 ing house is 40 by 156 feet, two stories high, with cellar for heeling in such 

 trees and plants as are required for spring sales and would be likely to take 

 injury through the winter if left in the open ground ; another advantage is, it 

 facilitates early shipments in spring. This cellar extends nnder the entire 

 building, and is entered at either end by doorways of sufficient size to admit 

 of team and wagon loaded with trees. The bottom is laid with a coat of 

 cement four inches thick, and this again covered eighteen inches deep with 

 fine soil for laying in the roots of trees and plants. Here thousands of trees 

 and plants can be safely stored out of all danger of injury from wind and 

 weather, ready for shipment a month or more before any can be moved from 

 the open ground. In fact, at any time during the winter months, should mild 

 weather occur, they can be handled with safety from these cellars. The ground 

 floor is used for boxing, marking, etc., and affords ample room for thirty or 

 forty men to work. On one end of this floor are the business offices, and un- 

 derneath the grafting room. The upper story is used for manufacturing and 

 storing boxes nsed in packing trees, and for the storing of tools, etc. So in- 

 dispensable to their extensive bnsiness have the proprietors fonnd the heeling 

 cellar above mentioned, that they w^ere erecting, and had nearly completed 

 another building 50x100 feet, with walls of masonry fourteen feet high, and 

 set in the ground six feet, to be used exclusively for this purpose. It is con- 

 nected with the main building by an open shed, 40x100 feet. This is used for 

 a packing shed and for storing moss, etc. The ornamental grounds attached 

 to these buildings are nine acres in extent, and were made up of city lots cov- 

 ered with dwellings, which the Messrs. Ilgenfritz have purchased and torn down 

 or removed, until they have the present area all to themselves, and situated in 

 one of the most advantageous and pleasant parts of the city. The grounds 

 were somewhat low in their natural state, and the proprietors have been at 

 great expense in filling and leveling. They have covered several acres with 

 fine soil for the growth of ornamental plants to the depth of from two to six 

 feet. It was a vast labor, but Mr. Ilgenfritz remarked: '' The soil should be 

 laid on until it pleased him, if it required a depth of ten feet." There is " a 

 heap of vim" in this man, I. E. Ilgenfritz. These grounds were in part already 

 planted to the finest varieties of ornamental flowering plants and shrubs, and 

 the coming season they will be entirely filled. From the ornamental grounds 

 we accompanied the proprietors to the farms where the heavy stocks of fruit 

 and ornamental ti'ees are grown. There are three in all, covering upwards of 

 300 acres in extent. And such stocks of trees were wonderful. The quantities 

 of special leading varieties— 50,000 Baldwin, 50,000 Greening, 20,000 and 30,- 

 000 Spy, Canada, etc., — were no unusual quantities to be found in single blocks. 

 The soil where these nurseries are located is a rich alluvial, underlaid with 

 clay, covering the limestone formation at most but a few feet below the sur- 



