TWENTY FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 265 



The treasurer's report and accompanying papers will show that the funds of the 

 society are well invested and in proper condition. 



With the exception of apples and the grapes (and small fruits in some sections), 

 the year 1895 was a productive one, although a time of unequaled drouth and 

 possessed of some other untoward features of climate. The principal of these was 

 the severe cold and heavy snow of the middle of May, which came when the trees 

 and plants were in bloom or filled with young fruits. The grapes succumbed at 

 once and the crop in the state was exceedingly small, a few localities near the 

 lake, in the southwestern part of the state, alone excepted. A little fruit was 

 obtained from the secondary buds, especially in cases where the frozen foliage was 

 stripped off at once. Currants and gooseberries were badly hurt in most localities, 

 and the crop shortened. The same was true of the other berries, though in less 

 degree. In the fruit belt north of Allegan and Kent counties, the injury to peaches 

 and plums was such as to entirely kill the latter and leave but comparatively little 

 of the former. This was the general condition in the region referred to, though 

 there were a few exceptions. But in Kent, Allegan, Van Buren, and to a some- 

 what less degree in Berri(-ii, the peaches and plums escaped injui-y and bore tlie lar- 

 gest crop in the history of the state. I can only give figures of the crop of two coun- 

 ties, as to peaches, and none as to other fruits, so hard is it to get reliable state- 

 ments as to each kind of fruit, and in many cases nothing whatever can be obtained 

 from pier, dock, or transportation companies. But it is a well-based statement to 

 say that from Kent county were sent 300,000 bushels of peaches, besides a part of 

 the consumption of Grand llapids, while the great orchards of Allegan county 

 turned out not less than one and one half million bushels of peaches, plums, and 

 pears combined. I am unable to separate the kinds, as all go together, as so many 

 baskets of fruit. But more than 1,000,000 bushels were peaches. 



Instead of loss of fruit, the cold, which went several degrees below the freezing 

 point, worked a loss of insects, a disaster which was borne with astonishing equa- 

 nimity. Curculio were troublesome nowhere. The cold came just as they were be- 

 ginning their work, and seems to have exterminated them. The codlin moth, canker 

 worm, and all the rest shared the same fate in greater or less degree. It is humil- 

 iating to admit that the great yield of plums and peaches is largely due to this 

 cause rather than to the enterprise and intelligence of the fruitgrowers; for it 

 may be as well here admitted that the average fruitgrower of Michigan jars but 

 little, sprays less, and thins with a niggard hand. But the place where fruit- 

 growers universally do otherwise than this is a locality of which I have not yet 

 heard. 



The pear crop was a good one throughout the state, but the apples were very 

 few. However, the apple trees have been free from the blight of former years, and 

 no doubt are ready to give us, another season, an old-fashion crop of Michigan 

 apples, though the day of thousands of old apple orchards in Michigan is passed. 



Owing to these conditions there was not so much practice of spraying in the state 

 as would otherwise been made, though I know of some examples of marked bene- 

 fit to apples in the northern part of the state, where the crop of winter fruit was 

 better than anywhere else. Apples were not harmed by the May cold. The trees 

 were in their off year and did not bloom. 



Since the method of cutting out black-knot of the plum and cheriy has come 

 into general practice, we hear of but little spread of this disease, and there is no 

 occasion for much fear of it. That scab of the apple, and the codlin moth, may be 

 subdued by spraying, is now so well demonstrated that rarely can a doubter be 

 found. But there is as yet no cure for yellows, nor any way found for abating the 

 disease save extermination of the affected trees. The new law as to yellows is 

 generally commended by growers of the peach, and if was better enforced than ever 

 the past season. In the peach regions there was much despondency last year 

 because of the apparent increase of this disease. But the present season has 

 witnessed not half so much as became apparent in 1894. The large number of 

 affected trees found that year, it is now understood, was due to the unfruitfulness 

 of the preceding year, which permitted the disease to become established in its first 

 stage, in many cases, and as there was no fruit there was no chance for detection. 

 So there was a double portion in 1894. A new disease of the peach has become 

 manifest in Allegan county, which may become as dangerous as yellows, though 

 it does not as yet show so much power of contagion. The affected trees grow 

 from year to year, the fruit and leaves growing continually smaller; the fruit is of 

 poor color and insipid; there is in some cases a little of sprouting about the tree. 



