242 GENERAL HISTORY. 



immediately iu contact therewith, "small pieces of bark, blocks, or anything 

 flat with a surface of from two to four inches." These traps were to be placed 

 about the tree, toward evening, and to be examined in the early morning, 

 when the insects are to be found attached to their under sides, and may be 

 readily collected and destroyed. 



This "trap" was the outcome of the observations and experiments of Mr. 

 Ransom during the previous two years, and seems to have also been success- 

 fully tried within that period by more or less of his neighbors. 



This discovery, at the time, attracted a good deal of attention, among both 

 fruit growers and entomologists, and was very widely tested, apparently with 

 varying success. Among others, the late Dr. Hull, the noted fruit grower 

 and writer of Alton, 111., and Prof. C. V. Riley, formerly State entomologist of 

 Missouri and now of the Agricultural Department at Washington, visited Mr. 

 Ransom and carefully examined the process, which seems not to have alto- 

 gether commended itself to their confidence, since both subsequently raised 

 the objection that, however efficient it may be found early in the season, with 

 the advent of warm nights the insect remains upon the tree, refusing longe 

 to avail himself of the protection of the "trap." 



Mr. Ransom, however, in the course of his essay, claims that failures may 

 result from want of a proper preparation of the surface, or from lack of 

 efficiency, and that a thorough and persistent use of his traps, if it does not, 

 in fact, exterminate the "little Turk," will go very far towards saving the 

 crop of fruit. 



As early as 1871 the larvie of the codling moth had become very trouble- 

 some in the orchards of western Berrien, and Mr. W. A. Brown had practiced 

 the placing of rags, as decoy traps, in the infested trees, and, after a few 

 days, when the larva3 had taken possession of them, destroying them by pass- 

 ing the whole through an ordinary clothes-wringer, a device soon after modi- 

 fied by the placing of cloth or paper bands around the trunks of the trees for 

 the same purpose. 



About the year 1862 the disease known as yellows was introduced among 

 the peach orchards of the county, and in April, 1873, a report of examina- 

 tions made at Benton Harbor and St. Joseph by Prof. R. C. Kedzie, of the 

 State Agricultural College, was made to the State Pomological Society, at a 

 session held at Lansing in April, 1872. The Orchard committee of the society, 

 who visited this region early in the following September, also found decided 

 manifestations of the disease in all directions, extending as far north as 

 Watervliet and Paw Paw lake, and learned that it had probably existed in the 

 vicinity since the year 1866. Various modes of treating the malady had been 

 tried, nearly or quite all of which were in the direction of fertilization for 

 the renewal of vigor, as the means of suppressing the disease, but nothing 

 seems to have proved permanently effective short of digging up and destroy- 

 ing the trees, and, with them, the disease, which, more recently, has gener- 

 ally been done. 



In June, 1872, the State Pomological Society held a meeting at Benton 

 Harbor, where they were received in a fine hall beautifully ornamented with 

 evergreens, plants and flowers which, with a large local attendance, rendered 

 the occasion one of much interest. 



At an early date a fruit plantation was commenced in the eastern portion 

 of the county by Bort, Moody & Son, which, for some unexplained reason, 

 was discontinued. "William Bort (of ihis company), who was long a promi- 

 nent horticulturist of Niles, died at that city in 1876. 



