■218 GENERAL HISTORY. 



ing year. Other orchards were, however, planted about this time, or very 

 soon thereafter, near Adrian, by Daniel Smith, Abram West, Milo Comstock 

 •and David Bixby. 



In 1830 Israel Pennington started a nursery in the town of Logan, now 

 known as Raisin, which he subsequently moved to the town of Macon, where 

 it was maintained till his death, in 1883, a period of fifty years. In 1833 he 

 planted an orchard of 100 apple trees, the first in the township of Macon. 

 The trees were seedlings, which were subsequently grafted. Other orchards 

 were soon after planted by Joseph Ilowell, James (Jollins and James Dennis, 

 all of which are still alive and in bearing condition. 



Mr. Pennington also planted a small pear orchard, of seventy-five trees, in 

 1848, of which, however, only a few Bartletts, Summer Bouchritiues, Anjous, 

 Aremburgs, Onondagas, Flemish Beauties, and Washingtons, now remain. 

 He also planted a small peach orchard, which has wholly disappeared, as has 

 an orchard of cherries also. In 1860 he planted out a few red cedars {Juni- 

 perus Virginiana), which are now fine trees, eight inches or more in diam- 

 eter, and in 1868 he added a wind-break of five hundred arbor vitses {Thuja 

 occidefitalis), as a protection to his residence and grounds. These are already 

 grown to be fine trees, many of them five inches in diameter. Through his 

 orchards and nursery, as well as by personal influence, Mr. Pennington, dur- 

 ing his long life, exerted a wide influence in the promotion of orchard plant- 

 ing, as well as in the development of a tendency toward the improvement of 

 rural home surroundings. 



The vicinity of Adrian is believed to have had no more earnest, painstaking 

 and conscientious horticulturists than were B. W. Steere, his father, and 

 their families. • 



How much of the present tasteful beauty of its streets, public and private 

 grounds, and cemeteries is due to their earnest, thoughtful and yet genial 

 influence will scarcely be comprehended, save by those who have known 

 them intimately and appreciatively. The nature and extent of such influence 

 can hardly be better expressed than in the language of B. W. Steere, in re- 

 sponse to a request for some account of his own experience in this direction, 

 which we subjoin, nearly entire, in his own language, preceding it by a letter 

 to him from M. J. Hoag, now of Rochester, Minn., in which is detailed the 

 nursery experience of his father, Nathaniel P. Hoag, in Lenawee county, as 

 follows : 



" My father commenced his nursery in the year 1833, by planting a bushel 

 of apple seeds. The following spring he procured cions of William Prince, 

 of Long Island, and grafted ten or twelve thou-and apple stalks. In 1837 

 he sold an undivided half of his nursery to E. Griscom, of New York. This 

 partnership continued down to the date of my father's death, on the 23d of 

 March, 1845. The following are some of the varieties he introduced : Ap- 

 ples — Esopus Spitzenburg, Baldwin, Newtown Pippin, Swaar, Rhode Island 

 •Greening, Rambo, Roxbury Russet, Yellow Bellflower, Talman Sweet, and 

 Early Harvest; plums — Green Gage, Yellow Egg and some others; grapes — 

 Isabella and Catawba ; also Orange quince. 



"In the year 1834 a scathing attack of the seventeen-year locust {Cicada 

 scptendecim) decimated the recently planted orchards of Lenawee county 

 to an alarming extent. Father's orchard of about one hundred trees, 

 that had been set, I think, two years, was completely ruined. Older orchards 

 ^suffered less." 



