232 GENERAL HISTORY. 



exhibit, although the day was stormy. Meetings were also held in April 

 and September of the following year, and the society made its regular annual 

 report for the year 1880, since which year reports seem not to have been 

 made. 



A society assuming the title of the Colon Floral and Art Association was 

 organized on the ISth of September, 1877. At that date a floral fair was 

 opened, with a fine display of five hundred pots of specimen plants, together 

 with a great variety of hanging baskets, quite a number of floral designs and 

 an indefinite number of vases of cut flowers, interspersed with fancy work 

 and paintings. The association held several meetings, and at the last one 

 reported — in the autumn of 1880 — it united with the Colon and Matteson 

 Pomological Society in a joint fall exhibit, since the report of which neither 

 association seems to have communicated with the State Society. 



The St. Joseph County Agricultural Society was organized November 29th,. 

 1829. 



St. Joseph county, according to the census of 1884, has of apple orchards 

 6,179 acres, 186,223 bearing trees, yielding in 1883, 55,155 bushels of fruit. 



Peach orchards, 66 acres, 3,481 bearing trees, yielding in 1883, 192 bushels 

 of fruit. 



The value of orchard products of all kinds, sold or consumed in 1883, was. 

 $28,729.00. 



Vineyards, 16 acres: grapes sold in 1883, 12,653 pounds. 



wine made in 1883, 24 gallons. 



Nurseries, 2 acres, products sold in 1883, $633.00. 



Market garden products sold in 1883, $5,309.00. 



CASS COUNTY. 



This county was set off by act of the Legislative Council of the Territory, 

 approved October 29th, 1829, and was organized in pursuance of an act of the- 

 same body, approved November 4th, 1829. 



It was named from Lewis Cass, at that time the governor of the Territory. 

 The county seat was established at Cassopolis, in the year 1832. 



The lands included in this county were not offered for sale till June 16th, 

 1829, while portions of the county were occupied by the reservations of three 

 bauds of Pottawattomie Indians. For these reasons, doubtless, although a few 

 pioneers located within its limits at a very early date, the settlement of the 

 county proceeded but slowly prior to the date of such public sale. 



The earliest permanent settlers in the county were Uzziel Putnam and 

 "William Baldwin Jenkins, who located on Poktigon prairie late in the 

 autumn of 1825, and who were soon followed by Squire Thompson, Abrani 

 Townsend and Israel Markam and his son. 



In tlie spring of 1830 Ira Nash planted a small orchard at Geneva, the 

 trees for which were obtained at a small nursery on or near Baldwin's i:)rairie. 

 During the same spring Lewis Edwards brought from Ohio and planted in 

 orchard, on Pokagon prairie, three hundred apple trees and one hundred 

 pear trees, together with currants, raspberries, etc. The apples were, as 

 Recently as 1875, still in a thrifty condition, but the pears had been mostly 



