OTTAWA COUNTY. 329 



The foregoing is the statement of fruit shipperl. If we assume the value 

 of that consumed at home to be one-third as great, or $3'<i,344, the total fruit 

 product of the county will "be 89,375 — truly a very importa-it item among the 

 wealth-bringing products of the county; and when we consider the amount of 

 lands in the county adapted to such purpose, we may be able to attain some 

 comprehension of what are our future possibilities. 



The soils of the county are well adapted to the culture of fruits ; with the 

 modifying influences of Lake Michigan our climate is good, and at Grand 

 Haven and Holland our shipping facilities are all that can reasonably be de- 

 sired. 



Mr. Frank Hall, president of the Spring Lake Horticultural Society, states 

 that as early as 1858 George Lovell planted a large peach orchard in the county 

 for commercial purposes. 



He farther states that apples, grapes and small fruits of all kinds do well, 

 but that peaches have failed from excessive cold in winter. 



Early in the eighth decade the lands about Spring Lake were eagerly sought 

 for, to be cleared and devoted to peach growing, and a large number of very 

 promising peach orchards were to be seen upon the shores of this beautiful, 

 land-locked sheet of water; but a succession of severe winters literally swept 

 them ont of existence, and no effort seems to have been made to renew them. 



A. A. Crozier states that apple orchards were first planted in the township 

 of Jamestown about 1850, that of William Arnold being among the first. 

 There are several orchards in the township, in good condition, planted soon 

 after that time. Joel Smith planted an orchard in 1855, and also supplied 

 trees from a small nursery for sevt-ral others in the vicinity. 



In 1856 0. E. L. Crozier planted an apple orchard in the adjoining town- 

 ship of Georgetown, on low ground, which did not do well. In 1865 he 

 planted another iu a better location, in Jamestown, consisting of fifty apples 

 and fifty dwarf pears. The apples are yet in good condition ; the pears have 

 died of blight. 



The last two plantations were from the nursery of H. E. Hudson, of Hud- 

 sonville, which was started at an early day and continued for a considerable 

 time. 



Kneeland & Ganzhorn commenced a nursery at or near Spring Lake in 

 1870. Two or three others were also started about this time in that region. 

 They were all discontinued from 1873 to '75, on account of hard times and 

 the general depression of business. The only one at present advertising fruit 

 trees for sale is that of Frank B. Wilde, in the township of Wright. 



Dr. Eastman, who settled at Eastmanville in 1843, planted about six acres 

 of fruit, and also a quantity of shade trees, mostly hard maples, which are 

 now from fifteen to eighteen inches in diameter. One of these was a native 

 black mulberry, a«somewhat rare tree in Michigan. 



In the forests near the old Indian camps, apple and pear trees have been 

 found, which are supposed to have been planted by the Indians. A pear tree 

 just budding into blossom was cut down by an ignorant workman on the 

 farm of Thomas Wilde about 1855. It measured about twenty-two inches in 

 diameter, and it was seventy feet to the first branch. 



E. F. Lillie, while clearing away for a mill in the town of Polkton, in the 

 fall of 1884, cut down an apple tree as tall as any of the forest trees, bearing 

 apples similar to the Greening. 



H. E. Hudson, of Hudsonville, in the township of Georgetown, has a grove 

 of fine chestnuts, planted about thirty years ago. 



