THE SEPTEMBER PEACH FESTIVAL AT 



SOUTH HAVEN. 



South Haven, September 5, 1873. 



The morning of Wednesday dawned here cloudy and threatening, and at 

 about 8 o'clock, A. M., a rain storm set in and continued with little intermis- 

 sion till one o'clock. 



During this time, however, the very spirited fruit-growers present, both 

 citizens and visitors, had been busy in arranging and putting up their collections 

 of fruits, so that when the rain ceased the way was clear for those yet to come, 

 who mostly arrived and displayed their collections during the afternoon. 



Visitors, as the trains arrived, were received by a committee and assigned 

 places during their stay ; the citizens generally showing a very commendable 

 degree of hospitality, — a very necessary condition of things in a place where 

 the hotels would have been quite inadequate to accommodate the large number 

 of persons in attendance upon the exhibition. 



The South Haven Pomological Society, upon whose imvitation this meeting 

 was held, also extended a similar invitation last autumn which was accepted ; 

 and they, feeling the need of a hall for pomological exhibitions, went to work 

 with a will, and within the ten days preceding the time for the meeting, secured 

 the material, and erected and completed the present hall, — a building about 50 

 feet wide by 100 feet long, with an adequate system of shelving for exhibitions, 

 and also a stand and seating for speakers and audience. 



The display of fruits here, when we consider theearlinessof the season, and 

 especially the general scarcity, is universally conceded to be exceedingly fine in 

 all departments; and the attendance of persons from abroad is unexpectedly 

 large, embracing a very considerable number of the prominent fruit-growers of 

 the State. 



Soon after one o'clock the meeting was assembled at the hall, and called to 

 order by T. T. Lyon, Vice President for Wayne county who presided in the 

 absence of the President, A. S. Dyckman, who, on account of the pressing 

 demands of his ripening peach crop, was unable to be present. 



THE EXHIBITOES. 



The Secretary was busy at the entry book. 



N. P. Husted, of Lowell, forwarded a carefully selected lot of forty-one dif- 

 ferent varieties of apples, pears, and small fruits, including plums and some 

 very large and well developed bunches of the Concord grape, besides Delaware, 

 Isabella, Ives' Seedling, Creveling, etc., etc. 



S. 0. Knapp, Jackson, Nyack Pippin and lot of pears. 



V. D. Dilley, Geneva, several varieties of apples, including one for name. 



Bragg, Glidden & Co., Paw Paw, specimens of nursery stock, consisting of 

 peach trees of one year's growth. 



0. Engle, of Paw Paw, has a very large collection of grapes, pears, etc. 



