178 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



that the committeemen can do, even if they are tolerably honest, is to go to 

 bed sober and rellect that better men have fared a good deal worse. 



THE DETROIT EXIIIBITIOX 



was every way creditable to the society nnder whose auspices it was made, and 

 to the f ruit-2:rowers of the Peninsular State. The chairman of this committee, 

 residing in the State of New York, and familiar with its fruit exliibitions, has 

 seldom or never seen it excelled. This is in every way encouraging, since the 

 enterprise and enthusiasm that made so fine a collection will not fail to make 

 the most of eminent and obvious advantages. Though only one in our galaxy 

 of States, Michigan, is larger than kingdoms that have ruled the world. Your 

 surroundings give to you ample territory, wonderful diversity and capability. 

 This diversity of soil, climate and situation enables you to grow a great variety 

 of products and to grow them in great perfection. Here a very important 

 consideration suggests itself: Farmers, fruit-growers and gardeners should 

 take unwearied pains to find out what, under their peculiar circumstances, they 

 can grow best. There is no rood of ground on the face of the earth but can 

 grow some one thing better than it can anything else. Precisely our first 

 business is to find out what we were made for, and what our soil was made for. 

 Special advantages are lost by putting things in the wrong place. Only by 

 getting the right thing in the right place can we achieve full success. We may 

 want a great many things, and a great many things may be wanted in our 

 neighborhood, but that is no proof that we are to grow them. Commerce is 

 admissible. If farmers would kee^^ minute and accurate accounts with their 

 several crops they could tell after a few years which give them profit and which 

 loss. To bring this matter nearer home, if you, gentlemen of the Michigan 

 State Horticultural Society, will keep accurate accounts with your orchards 

 you will find that certain apples, pears and grapes that you cultivate bring you 

 loss, while other kinds give you handsome profits. Or perhaps your apples 

 pay and your grapes run you in debt. Of course we all try to find profitable sorts, 

 but do we go to work in a business way, keeping accurate accounts with indi- 

 vidual trees, and do we promptly put away the poor ones when we find them 

 out? Perhaps you do, some of us do not. 



The warm quick soils of Southern Michigan would seem to be adapted to 

 peaches, grapes, summer and winter apples. 



LONG KEEPING APPLES 



grow slow, and they should not mature till cold weather takes them in charge. 

 Northern Michigan would seem to be adapted to late keepers, and if so, why 

 not make a specialty of them? Why not give the early trade to the South? 

 There is reason to believe that sections capable of producing late keeping 

 apples in perfection will find it to their advantage in giving almost exclusive 

 attention to their cultivation. The apple is the chief fruit in the temperate 

 zone, and no zone can furnish its superior. The late keeping varieties are per- 

 manent, for they give us fresh fruit when other fruits retire. Summer and 

 autumn furnish a profusion of delicacies — hidden bv the herbacfe under our 

 feet, growing on the prickly busii, pendant from the training vine; suspended 

 on droopii]g branches in summer sun are forms and fiavors marvelous and 

 matchless, but they do not stay ! When winter has drawn us into our abodes, 

 when spring with its relaxing warmth has come — welcome, thrice welcome, the 

 rich substantial Swaar, the sprightly well-riponed Bellflowcr, the crisp, peerless 



