234 GENERAL HISTORY. 



At a meeting of the Michigan State Pomological (now Horticultural) So- 

 ciety, held at South Haven in June, 1877, Mr. Bidwell exhibited very fine 

 specimens of this variety, under the name of Centennial. 



A member of the examining committee on that occasion, who had received 

 plants from Mr. Hathaway for trial, recognized this as one of them, and so 

 stated to the society ; but the matter was not followed up at the time, and 

 the variety was locally disseminated under that name. 



The South Haven Pomological Society subsequently, under the apprehen- 

 sion that Mr. B — was the actual originator, rechristened it ''Bidwell," to 

 avoid complication with a previously named Centennial. 



It was only after the variety began to attract attention abroad that, upon 

 the appeal of Mr. Charles Downing and E. P. Roe, T. T. Lyon applied to 

 Mr. Hathaway and learned the facts as stated. 



A county agricultural society was organized August 17th, 1850, which has 

 doubtless contributed greatly to the development of horticultural taste and 

 practice; and the same is doubtless true of the Volinia Farmers' Club, which 

 was organized in 1865, and which has constantly given much of its influence 

 to the promotion of fruit culture, as well as to horticulture generally. 



B. Hathaway, of Little Prairie Konde, contributed a collection of applet 

 to the exhibit of fruit made by the State Pomological Society, in Sej)tember 

 and October, at the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia. 



In- 1871 Mr. Hathaway was awarded the first premium by the orchard com- 

 mittee of the State Pomological Society, for ornamental grounds attached to 

 a farm residence. 



In 1872 the citizens of Dowagiac established, laid out and commenced the 

 ornamentation of a cemetery embracing twenty-two acres of land, beautifully 

 located on a rising ground south of the corporation. 



A portion of the ample grounds donated to the railroad company for depot 

 purposes is set aside and ornamented as a public jiark. 



B. Hathaway, in 1873, devised and described, at a meeting of the State 

 Pomological Society, at Lansing, a new form of a trap for collecting and de- 

 stroying the larvae of the codling moth, so injurious to the apple crop. It 

 consists in substituting thin wooden bands for those of cloth or paper here- 

 tofore employed. The orchard products of Cass county for the year 1870, as 

 repoit.'d by State authority, were valued at $109,689. 



In 1875, Mr. Hathaway detailed the result of an experience of a series of 

 years in the planting and management of pears, with the conclusion that the 

 occasional severe winters of interior southern Michigan are almost certainly 

 fatal to success with this fruit — certainly so in his locality. Also that 

 dwarfs are valueless there, unless so planted as to induce the emission of 

 roots from the pear, above the quince stock. 



At the same meeting Mr. Hathaway exphiined his mode of managing the 

 lona grape, by which he is enabled to secure satisfactory and profitable results 

 where other modes of treatment are usually unsatisfactory. 



B. Hathaway is reported as the sole contributor from Cass county to the 

 State Pomological Society's exhibit of fruits at the Centennial Exposition. 



Secretary Garfield, in his "Brief of Horticulture in Michigan," says: 

 ''Cass county contains rich farming lands, and ujion a majority of farms the 

 apple orchard is an important attribute. Peaches are little grown for market, 

 but all other northern fruits flourish, and the proximity of Chicago markets, 

 with direct tran3i)ortation over the Chicago & Grand Trunk and Michigan 



