48 GENERAL HISTORY. 



C( 



In Mr. Lyon's collection we found the largest Eed Oanadas we ever saw.'' 

 A seedling from C. W. Whitney, Macomb county, but shown by C. L. Whit- 

 ney, of Muskegon, is very fine. 



The committee on grapes, pears and preserved peaches, together with dried 

 fruits and vegetables, including drying apparatus, also maide a commendatory 

 report. 



A sharp discussion occured upon the question of a change of the title of 

 the society to tiorticultural or Floricultural. An informal vote of the soci- 

 ety was strongly opposed to the change. 



Notice of a proposal to change the name of the society was again given. 



At nine o'clock P. M. the society adjourned. 



From this time forward the State Pomological Society abandoned the hold- 

 ing of monthly meetings, limiting the number to four each year — a winter 

 meeting m January or February, a June meeting in the season of straw- 

 berries, the annual fair in September and the annual meeting for the election 

 of officers in December. 



In pursuance of this arrangement, the next meeting occurred at Adrian on 

 June 23d, 1874, the winter meeting having apparently been omitted. 



The opening address of President Dyckman was devoted to the peaches of 

 the Michigan jDeach b.lt, which commences as follows: " When, about the 

 end of the last half century, Eleazur Morton, George Parmelee and Curtis 

 Boughton, the pioneers of St. Joseph peach culture, set their respective 

 orchards — an aggregate area of about iwenty-five acres — peoj^le opened their 

 eyes in amazement at this exhibition of lunacy, thinking the product of such 

 large orchards would overstock the market. Now, with their estimated six 

 hundred thousand peach trees in that region, in 1872, besides extensive 

 orchaid interests at South Haven, Saugatuck, Holland, Grand Huven, 

 Spring Lake and other points north along the shore, our western Michigan 

 fruit growers are relieved of the charge of lunacy." 



The address is devoted to the description of a few of the more j^opular 

 market varieties, with their history, followed by a description of his mode of 

 cultivation, pruning and subduing injurious insects, some particulars of 

 which his theories and practice do not altogether accord with those of some 

 of his equally successful nei^rhbors. Near the close he remarks: "As to the 

 yellows, that inscrutable dread of the peach grower, we refer to the able 

 report of our committee, with only this admonition, that with an ax, spade 

 and fire, the most radical treatment brings the greatest safety" — a conclusion 

 in which he will doubtless be heartily sustained by experienced peach growers 

 generally in this State. 



John J. Thomas, of Union Springs, New York, followed with a very prac- 

 tical address on -'Horticulture for the People," in the course of which he 

 remarks: ''He who can devote a few acres may place upon his table, every 

 day in the whole year, a supply of wholesome, delicious and refreshing fruit," 

 which he sustains by indicating of what the requisite succession may be made 

 to consist. 



Of nurseries he says: "A little over thirty years ago, visiting a nursery at 

 Kochester, New York, then occupying six acres in all — or rather it was 

 expected to occupy six acres when all planted — two laborers were hired to do 

 the digging and hoeing, and the two young and industrious proprietors did 

 the pruning, budding and grafting." 



"About thirty-five years ago a New England nurseryman, as he informed 



