PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING "7 



miles soutlnvcsi from licre; iuid in rej^ard to my own county, Tonia, there 

 the peach business is quite extcnsi\e. Large orchards have been set in 

 the last four years. In Montcalm county, this year, where there were 

 peach trees big enough to bear they w'ere full of peaches, straight west of 

 here. It was right in by Sheridan. An old friend of mine near Sheridan 

 had oOO peach trees that were perhaps seven or eight years old, and he 

 sold from those trees 625 bushels of peaches this year, and I thought it 

 was pretty well, when we had none in Ionia county to speak of. 1 have 

 several kinds of strawberry, and speaking about the market as to 

 farmers, I had this year somewhere about :i,00(l quarts of strawberries, 

 and I sold nine tenths of my berries at the door to the farmers; they came 

 right after them; and in canvassing through the country I try to sell 

 plants to the farmers, but they say, "No, Mr. Mason, we do not wish to 

 bother with your plants, but we will buy your berries ourselves, we can 

 buy them of you cheaper than w^e can raise them," and that has been my 

 experience with the farmers in regard to small fruit. I can sell them trees 

 better than I can sell them berry plants. 



Mr. Brook: I think in this immediate vicinit}', the soil is a quite heavy 

 clay, there are quite a good many berries being set, and apple trees 

 around here are doing pretty well. This year they seem to have suffered 

 some from blight. Many pears have fallen off for want of spraying, but 

 I think the soil is adapted to berries. 



Mr. Morrill: This peculiar style of soil of which Mr. Pitt spoke seems 

 to be remarkably w^ell adai)ted to growing Bartletts. Where there is red 

 clay with limestone mixture in the subsoil were the finest Bartletts I have 

 seen in the state. A\'hat do you say about that. Prof. Taft? 



Prof. Taft : Very good, yes, sir. 



Mr. Morrill : I see better pears on that than I do on the heavy sub-clay, 

 as a rule, so far as Bartletts are concerned. Some other varieties are 

 different. 



Mr. Pitt: When I started on my farm over here I had no experience 

 whatever in fruit culture. I used to come over here, and at the county 

 clerk's ofifice I found a lot of Horticultural Reports, and I took those home 

 and read them, and what information I have in regard to the fruit busi- 

 ness I got from those Reports and from my actual experience. 



Mr. Croy : My soil, on which I spoke of growing those Ohio black-caps, 

 is the very same kind of soil that my friend Pitt says he has for his peach 

 trees. I dig down about 14 or 16 inches and find a reddish sand, and it is 

 very firm; I can hardly dig it with a spade, while on top of that is a kind 

 of gravelly sand loam which is very loose. I could go this summer into 

 mv garden where I had mv berries, and run mv hand down into the 

 ground six or seven inches, take the soil up, and find it damp. Even 

 during the drouth it was damp, and I find that soil of that kind will hold 

 moisture — what it gets it will hold, it will not leach out and go down 

 or go up; but .you have to cultivate thoroughly, keep your cultivator going 

 continually, when you have vines there, and keep the moisture and not 

 let the ground bake. It will bake in a very few days after a rain; and if 

 you let a crust form over the top, the water will evaporate. Now\ as a 

 rule, as Mr. Brook says, this county is not adapted to peaches. Why? 

 Because the most of Gratiot county is low land; about one half of it is 

 what you call low or swampy land, especially around Ithaca. But wher- 

 ever there is high land in this county, I hav(^ discovered that peaches can 

 be grown just as successfully as they can in Ionia county. I have traveled 



