VAN BUREN COUNTY. 269 



-close of the year 1837, however, settlements had been effected in nearly or 

 quite every township in the county. 



^>In a contribution to a ''History of Michigan Horticulture," in 1880, A. 

 C! Glidden says : " The first apple seeds planted near Paw Paw were planted 

 by Joseph Lyle, senior. A pint of seed was brought by him in 1835, and 

 half were planted the following spring and the remainder in the spring of 

 1837. James Lee came in the spring of 1838, from Ogden, Monroe county, 

 N. Y., bringing with him clous of Rhode Island Glreening, Seeknofurther, 

 Spitzenburg, Spice Sweet, lioxbury Russet, Big Stem Harvest, Fall Pippin, 

 Early Harvest, Swaar, Twenty Ounce, Sweet Bough, Cheesbro Russet, 

 Harvest Redstreak and Ox Heart (cherry?). These cions were used to en- 

 graft the young trees grown from the seeds planted by Mr. Lyle. 



Joshua Bangs settled in Paw Paw in 1836. He sent back to Monroe 

 county, N. Y., for apple seeds, which he planted in the spring of 1837. He 

 had learned to bud and graft, and was the first to bud seedlings in the county. 

 In 1840 he planted an orchard from these, and most of the old orchards in 

 the vicinity of Paw Paw are from this stock. 



After exhausting the Bangs stock, the Dunham nursery, near Kalamazoo, 

 supplied most of the trees planted in this vicinity, although some came from 

 Plymouth, Wayne county, and a few from Cooper and Schoolcraft, Kalama- 

 zoo county, between 1840 and 1844. 



In 1836 Isaac Barnum brought with him from Cayuga county, N". Y., 

 peach pits, from which sprang the first peach trees grown in the county. 

 These were all chance seedlings, some of them of fine quality ; one of them. 

 Snow's Orange, has become a popular variety. 



Mrs. Samuel Oilman came to Paw Paw with her husband in 1838, from 

 Ogden, Monroe county, N. Y., bringing with her plum pits and other seeds, 

 which she planted, and at that early day secured annual crops of excellent 

 plums. Some of these seedlings may yet be seen on some of the old farms 

 of this vicinity, though now no longer productive. 



A schooner loaded with apples was wrecked on Lake Michigan in 1840 or 

 1841. Orlando S. Brown, of Bangor, saved the seeds from the apples that 

 floated ashore, which he planted in the latter year. The trees grown from 

 these seeds produced the first fruit grown in the town of Bangor. 



C. Engle, of Paw Paw, had observed in 1850, and several successive years, 

 that a few peach trees upon a high knoll on the elevated table lands of the 

 town of Porter blossomed freely, when others upon the common level failed. 

 Observing this fact, he was encouraged to venture the planting of peach trees 

 upon an elevated ridge on his own lands. This purpose he was finally able 

 to realize in 1861, when he planted seven hundred trees — five hundred Early 

 Crawfords and two hundred Barnard or Snow's Orange, as they were called 

 there at that time. These, except one hundred which were planted in hol- 

 lows and were winter killed, fruited during their fifth year, yielding a net 

 return of $2,100. 



Between the year of his first crop, 1866, and 1882, a period of sixteen 

 years, the net returns from these seven hundred trees was $3,300 per acre. 



In 1860 the late N. H. Bitely planted five hundred peach trees upon the 

 hills near Lawton, which produced their first crop simultaneously with those 

 of Mr. Engle. During the next two years — 1867 and 1868 — several orchards 

 were planted, and this continued until about one hundred and fifty thousand 

 trees were in orchards in the vicinity, when the yellows made its appearance 

 .among them, and this and the cold winters put a stop to planting. 



