REPORTS OF AUXILIARY SOCIETIES. 327 



LAWTON HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



REPORTED BY SECRETARY LAWTON. 



President — Hon. Henry Ford. 

 Secretary — C. D. Lawton. 



The society meets occasionally for the purpose of concert of action regarding 

 the purchase of packages, manner of shipping, freight charges and such other 

 matters as immediately concern all fruit growers. At such time an invitation 

 to attend is usually extended to all persons who are engaged in this vocation, 

 and the meetings are well attended and some valuable result is accomplished. 

 Thus the society is a nucleus — a head center — of the important fruit producing 

 industry of this locality. Through its action the Michigan Central Railroad 

 Co. was induced the past season to put on a fruit train or fruit cars to go daily 

 from this place to Chicago, fixing the charges on the fruit at 34c per 100 lbs. 

 We have found this to be a great advance on all previous methods. Shipping 

 by express is very unsatisfactory. Not only are the charges too great but the 

 fruit is badly handled, frequently destroyed or stolen, and it is very difficult to 

 obtain any recompense from the company, while by freight there has been com- 

 paratively little loss of fruit sent and the cost is greatly reduced. 



The kinds of fruit produced here are chiefly raspberries, peaches, grapes and 

 apples, though there is quite an amount of strawberries, blackberries and pears 

 raised also. The black-caps were an abundant crop the past year, and were 

 fairly remunerative. Peaches were a moderate crop. Some varieties bore 

 fully. Such were the Hill's Chili, Early Beatrice, Early Alexander, Early 

 Rivers. Other kinds, as Barnards, Crawfords, Smock, Oldmixon, etc., occa- 

 sionally bore some. 



Prices were good, and the profit realized by the growers naturally awakened 

 a regret that they could not have a larger quantity to sell. This shortage in 

 the crop was due to the severity of the previous winter. The thermometer 

 marked so low a degree of temperature several times during the winter that 

 all expectation of having any crop of peaches was abandoned before the spring 

 came. So that the fact of the trees blossoming at all was a surprise, a -very 

 agreeable one. 



Grapes were a good crop and as our fruit goes to market earlier than the 

 Ohio, New York, or Lake Shore grapes, we realized an average of reasonably 

 good prices. There were shipped from this station about 100,000 packages of 

 grapes — 500 tons — which realized to the grower from $10 to $50 per ton, aver- 

 age net sales. The variety raised is mainly the Concord. There are four 

 Niagara vineyards, which have been set four years, and this year the first crop 



