354 GENERAL HISTORY. 



the land is quite elevated, with many boulders, but too level for effective air 

 drainage, and hence not suited to the growing of the more tender fruits. 



The southern tier of townships is too level for any but the more hardy 

 fruits, while the eastern portion is too far from the lake. The townships of 

 Benona, Shelby, Golden, Hart and Weare can hardly be surpassed by any 

 portion of the State for the cultivation of the fruits adapted to this climate, 

 owing to their undulating surface and proximity to Lake Michigan, elevated 

 as they are from two to three hundreji feet above its surface. 



The earlier practice was to plant fruits close to the water, under the im- 

 pression that moist air w(Mld prevent frost, but more recently elevated loca- 

 tions are j^referred. 



Mr. Garver located in Oceana when t*ie country was very new, and has, 

 from the first, made fruit culture a prominent feature of his farming. 



From past experience, he would plant apple trees forty feet apart each way 

 for free exposure to air and light, and for greater convenience in gathering 

 the fruit and in cultivation. 



Among the apples which he has tested, of the following he would only plant 

 a tree or two for home use, viz : Early Harvest, Alexander, Golden Sweet, 

 Fameuse, Scarlet Pearmain, Autumn Strawberry, Hawley, Autumn Swaar, 

 Fall Pippin, Rambo, Swaar, Wagener, Stark, Primate, Pomme Gris, Eed 

 Cheek Pippin, Jersey Sweet and Danvers' Sweet. 



For market he would prefer Eed Astrachan, Oldenburgh, Maiden's Blush, 

 Twenty Ounce, Gravenstein, Colvert, Rhode Island Greening, Baldwin, Falla- 

 water and Talman Sweet. 



His orchards contain eight hundred apple trees, about half of which are 

 unprofitable varieties. 



A small peach orchard, planted twenty years ago, principally Early and 

 Late Crawfords, were dug out in 1886. The Early Crawfords bore fairly pro- 

 ductive for nearly eighteen years. The Late Crawfords were comparatively 

 unprofitable. The Barnard seems well adapted to his soil. He also had a 

 a small orchard of the Garver peach, a seedling of his, which had proved 

 profitable, very hardy, and commanding in 1885, three dollars per bushel. 



Recently the curculio had become troublesome, attacking peaches as well 

 as plums. As a remedy he practiced jarring. 



He tried high manuring and cultivation, but finds that the peach will not 

 bear this kind of crowding as well as a field of corn. 



He had raised plums nearly every year for twenty years, but recently the 

 curculio had come to be "a, terror." 



He thinks they are too far north to raise the best quality of grapes, but, by 

 training them upon the sides of buildings, and letting them hang late, they 

 do very well. 



In 1849 the Oceana County Agricultural Society was organized. 



In March, 1876, the annual meeting of the Oceana County Pomological 

 Society occurred at Hart, on which occasion a large and fine display of apples, 

 canned plums and peaches was exhibited. 



T. T. Lyon, who chanced to be in attendance, improved the opportunity to 

 examine an extensive orchard of apples and plums then recently planted by 

 Judd & Hand, of Hart. Also the orchards of D. L. Garver, already noticed, 

 together with the older bearing plum, peach, and apple orchards of C. A. 

 Sessions, at Blackberry Ridge, near Sammon's Landing, together with several 

 peach and other orchards in that vicinity, a region which had already begun 



