152 REPOKT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE 



The same policy which has made New England rich and 

 influential, is just the policy for the West — for Michigan. We 

 must study our own peculiarities, our own advantages, and 

 work at them and bring them out. If wheat culture will not 

 pay, alone, by itself, let us add something else to it. 



THE MARKET ADVANTAGES OF A PEN-IKSULA STATE. 



There are many things to encourage the fruit culturists of 

 Michigan, but chiefly I wish to note her market facilities. A 

 State surrounded with lake ports and harbors, she offers 

 peculiar advantages for the shipment of fruit. Across her 

 borders there will soon be five gigantic through trunk lines 

 of railroad, connecting the east and west lakes, and traversing 

 the finest fruit sections of the State. These will be cut and 

 crossed, very soon, by as many north and south lines of rail- 

 road, so that for inland facilities for transporting all kinds of 

 produce, fruit included, no State can boast superior advantages. 

 But her advantages for water transportation are also unex- 

 celled. Very soon each and all of her lake towns will be con- 

 nected with the great centres of western trade by regular daily 

 lines of steam craft, especially adapted to the transport of 

 fruit, which can best be carried on the water. For all time to 

 come, Chiicago will get a supply of fruit from St. Joseph and 

 Grand Haven. The markets for Michigan fruit, strange as it 

 may seem, are to be in the West and North and Northwest. 

 Milwaukee is a growing market centre for Michigan fruit, and 

 one of her local papers, the Sentinel, recently noticed this 

 trade as follows : 



" The Milwaukee Fruit Trade. — It is surprising to con- 

 sider the enormous quantities of fruits, both green and dried, 

 which are annually consumed in the United States. Of late 

 years, the imports of oranges, lemons, raisins, tigs, and nuts, 

 have increased so rapidly that the New York and Boston press 

 have repeatedly commented on the consumption of such large 

 quantities of " tropical delicacies," which find a remunerative 



