THE SEPTEMBER PEACH FESTIVAL. 397 



to meet that committee with delegates from kindred societies, in Philadelphia, 

 on September 17th, to take into consideration the best means of promoting 

 the success of the Horticultural Department of the International Exhibition 

 in 1876. Eeferred to the President with power to act. 



In a letter to the Secretary, Mr. George Parmelee, of Old Mission, Grand 

 Traverse county, reports a considerable loss of fruit trees in his peach and 

 apple orchards, but sajs it was clearly not from the cold of last winter, but 

 doubtless from fault in cultivating and making them grow too much, late in 

 the season. Those peach trees that received medium cultivation are many of 

 them full of fruit; grape vines above as well as below the snow last winter are 

 also full; apricot buds were unhurt and the fruit is now ripe; pears and 

 sweet cherries fruited and grew from terminal buds never better than this 

 year; all which facts show it was not the intensity of the cold which injured 

 his orchards; even in his thrifty peach orchard the trees on the ridges where 

 the snow all blew oflF were unhurt. 



CODLIKG MOTH TEAP. 



Some specimens of trap for the codling moth, exceedingly cheap and simple, 

 were exhibited. They consist simply of a bandage of common brown paper 

 fastened around the trunk of the tree with a string. Under these the moth 

 finds a place for its transformatory process, as under the cloth bandages simi- 

 larly applied; but here he finds another enemy than man, and here the fruit- 

 grower has an additional and efficient aid in the feathered tribe, which, with 

 unerring instinct, finds the hiding place of the moth through the thin cover- 

 ing of the paper, easily pierced, plucks out the worm and destroys him. The 

 paper bands shown were pierced with many holes through which the birds had 

 removed the pests ; and it was stated that hardly more than from one to three 

 moths under the bandages ever escaped the bill of these birds. 



The Secretary presented some comparative statistics to show the great 

 increase in orchard products in the towns, counties, and State since 1850, and 

 called particular attention to the importance and desirability of more complete 

 records and reports under these heads. 



The total value of orchard products for the year ending June 1st, 



1850, was 1130,522 



Van Buren county reported 15,008 



Berrien county, which was then just coming forward, reported 6,681 



The value of orchard products in the State for the year ending June 1st, 

 1870, was $3,537,278, making an increase of nearly $3,500,000 in twenty years. 



Berrien county reported in 1870.-. $561,641 



Van Buren county reported in 1870 135,910 



Town of South Haven reported in 1870.. 10,310 



Now, said the Secretary, to show that these figures are far too low, it is a 

 fact that in this township of South Haven there are single parties who will 

 this year (1873) sell more fruit than was reported for the entire township; and 

 this township will this year produce more fruit than was reported for the whole 

 of Van Buren county in 1870. 



The list shows also that the town of Plymouth, Wayne county, stands high 

 in the list of those producing the highest returns in this branch of industry; 

 and it astonishes some of these western fruitmen, who think, perhaps, as the 

 Secretary said, that they have it all to themselves, to find that Oakland county, 



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