TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING. 39 



years from setting out, or what would be still better, set apple trees, and 

 in a few years their fruit would buy all the sugar and syrup needed, and 

 money be left for other purposes. r*"^ 



Other and abler pens than mine have from time to time given you the 

 history and statistics of horticulture in this county, so that much that I 

 can say is only a rethreshing of old straw. This paper is becoming some- 

 what lengthy and tedious; still I would call your attention to an item or 

 two more. I find, by the state census of 1874, Eaton county is reported 

 as having 6,934 acres of orchards, later, by the state census of 1884, it is 

 reported at 6,312.50 acres of apple orchard, a loss under state census, in 

 10 years, of 622 acres, a loss of nine per cent, for the period. I also find the 

 supervisors' report for the year 1889 to credit Eaton county with having 

 6,447.20 acres of apple orchard; and the following year, 1890, the same is 

 reported at 5,931.54 acres, a* loss in one year of 516 acres, fully eight per 

 cent. Now, it is possible that during the ten years between the taking of 

 the state's census, this waste and destruction of orchards may have hap- 

 pened. We can think of natural causes and circumstances occuring near 

 that time to bring about such a result. But I am sure, if our supervisors 

 had taken their census correctly, for the two years past there would be no 

 such difference as they have given us in their reports. If we were to 

 judge of the state of horticulture in Eaton county by the state census and 

 supervisors' reports, we should be obliged to state that fruit -raising was 

 rapidly becoming one of the industries of the past. Such we do not 

 believe to be the case, but that, for the past few years, more trees are set 

 in orchards, that grow to bear fruit, than die out of the old trees. 



Nothing has been done toward the preservation of the forest trees, 

 neither have our people set out trees for future timber uses so far as I have 

 been able to learn. It seems as though there should be, in some way, a 

 government aid or bounty given that, man who would reset to timber some 

 of the waste places in our county, that are now so desolate and worthless. 

 Surely he should deserve as well, or better, for such service as the man 

 who makes more out of his sugar bush than from all the rest of his farm 

 lands, bounty or no bounty. 



Mr. Rice: It has been observed in New York that such roadside trees 

 as Mr. Crawford speaks of, which are quite common there, often bear 

 better than those further away in adjoining fields, and the cause of this 

 is believed to be the fertilizing qualities of road dust. 



Mr. Crawford : Besides the aid of the dust, the trees have the advantage 

 that the soil they stand in is not cropped. 



Next in order came the following paper by Prof. L. R. Taft of Michigan 

 Agricultural college, upon the process of fertilization of flowers, entitled 



FROM BLOSSOM TO FRUIT. 



We all admire beautiful or fragrant flowers, and perhaps sometimes 

 think that they have been giving their bright colors and pleasant odors 

 that they may contribute to the gratification of our senses; but, really, in the 

 wild flowers with which nature surrounds us with so lavish a hand, it is 

 doubtful if this is at best more than a secondary object. 



Nearly all of our higher plants, at some period of their existence, are 



