PROCEEDINGS OF THE WINTER MEETING. 11 



Mr. L. B. Rice was of the opinion that trees experience oflF years. 



Mr. R. Morrill gave his views on setting out strawberry plants. He 

 believed in selecting plants from young and growing beds, but never from 

 an old bed. Select plants from hills after they have headed. 



Mr. Joseph Porter asked the president if he considered the coming 

 season a good one for fruit. 



President Lyon replied, " We must never crow until we are out of the 

 woods. Let us wait and let the trees speak for themselves." 



Mr. L. B. Rice stated that the severe weather the past few days had 

 injured fruit trees, causing many of them to crack. 



The meeting then adjourned till 9:30 o'clock next morning. 



Thursday Morning Session. 



President Lyon called to order, nearly fifty persons being present, a 

 number which later was considerably increased. As so many of the essay- 

 ists were detained at home by sickness, a rearrangement of the programme 

 was made, the secretary meantime reading the letters from the absentees. 



As had been originally arranged, Mr. L. B. Rice of Port Huron read 

 the following paper upon 



FRUITGROWING UPON THE WEST SHORE OP LAKE HURON. 



By the west shore I would be understood to mean that portion of " the 

 thumb " bordering upon the lake and extending from the St. Clair river 

 around to Saginaw bay. Take a strip several miles wide and it would 

 embrace a variety of soil. There would be clay land, hard and heavy, 

 gravelly loam, sand ridges of the poorest kind, intermediate sand, generally 

 cold and wet in the spring, and swamp muck. 



In the early days these sand ridges produced great quantities of the 

 finest wild berries, rivaling the cultivated in flavor and size. 



Along the streams the wild plum and crab apple grew in great pro- 

 fusion, showing, even in a state of nature, that this was the natural home 

 of the small fruits and the plum and apple. 



The best land for orchards, in its natural condition (that is, without 

 underdraining), is the gravelly loam ridge a few miles back from the lake 

 and extending to the end of "the thumb." The heavy clay and the wet 

 sand need underdraining before they will produce healthy orchards, and 

 the sandy ridges have so far developed so many enemies that I do not 

 now remember a good orchard on that kind of land. 



some besetments. 



The worst enemies that I have ever known, however, are poor fences and 

 poor care, followed by depredations of cattle. The next was the cut worm 



