320 • GENERAL HISTORY. 



The first Lombardy poplar was brought into the county by Samuel White 

 and planted near the head of Stocking street. From this slips were taken 

 to stock the Coldbrook nursery. When getting the first nursery stock at 

 Monroe, Mr. A. T. Page secured a quart of seed of the common yellow 

 locust. This was planted, and from it within a few years over $3,000 worth 

 of trees were sold. 



, A few trees of the very best sorts were imported from Hodges' nursery at 

 Buffalo, by Page, while he was starting his nursery. The most of these 

 were sold again, but a few were retained and planted from which to get 

 grafts and to use as an advertisement of the nursery as they came into bear- 

 ing. The first fruit thus grown was very precious and was preserved with 

 the greatest care. The first trees sold were seedlings, and customers asked 

 no questions. They were glad to get anything called a fruit tree, but as 

 soon as the first grafted trees bore more anxiety was shown to get good 

 varieties. 



While waiting for fruit from the first apple trees, some one chanced to dis- 

 cover a fine grove of thrifty apple trees upon the bank of a small stream, 

 just upon the outskirts of the settlement. The discoverer commenced to 

 dig them, but as soon as the fact became known nearly half the people of the 

 town resorted to the place to secure trees. When, during the second year 

 after their removal, some of these trees came into bearing, the planters were 

 much disappointed at the discovery that they were native wild crab apples. 



The root grafts brought by Page were some of them sold at three years of 

 age, and distributed through Kent, Ionia and Ottawa counties. 



Abel T. Page, a son of Abel Page, who was associated with his father in 

 his nursery enterprise, states that his father died in 1854, but that he con- 

 tinued the business until 1859, when it was sold out. 



About 1855 Hiram Rhodes established a nursery on the river, just below 

 Ada, and H. N. Peck started ab Jut the same time in the town of Grand 

 Eapids. The Kellogg nursery was started a little later, on the hill between 

 Fountain and Fulton streets, and was afterwarJs purchased by George Nel- 

 son. As soon as the Detroit & Milwaukee railroad was completed to Grand 

 Rapids, nursery stock, the refuse of eastern nurseries, was shipped into the 

 Grand river country and sold at rates far below what the stock could be 

 grown for here, and hence the business was gradually dropped. Soon after 

 tliis the Husteds started near Lowell and ran a large nursery business until 

 1873. 



In 1836 Mr. Robert Hilton came to Grand Rapids, and the only two 

 orchards started that were talked about then were those of Burton, in Paris, 

 and Chubb, at Grandville. Mr. Hilton's farm was in Walker, and in 1840 

 he planted fifty apple trees about forty rods from the river. In 1845 he 

 planted three hundred more grafted apple trees, purchased of George Barker, 

 who had a small nursery out on Bridge street west, near the city limits, and 

 of a small nursery that stood south of Monroe street, near the site of Aldrich's 

 block. The orchards are yet standing, and before Mr. Hilton left them, in 

 1848, some of the trees bore well. From two trees of Fameuse, in one year, 

 (probably 1848) he took twenty-one and one-fourth bushels. He grew 

 peaches on the land near the river, and in those days the locality seemed very 

 free from frosts, even more so than the higher ground. 



The towns of Caledonia and Bowne were originally one, and the very first trees 

 taken there had a very interesting history. Mr. Reuben H. Smith, in 1840, 



