REPORTS OF AUXILIARY SOCIETIES. 383 



Bringing these amounts together we have the following values: 



Apples and apple products. $85,115 00 



Sorghum . . 1,000 00 



Plums -. 1,520 50 



Grapes . 4,000 00 



Strawberries 7,000 00 



Raspberries 1,225 00 



Cherries 1,500 00 



Peaches 500 00 



Total. $101,860 50 



There is a constantly increasing area every year devoted to the industry of 

 market gardening, from which fact I infer that the business is profitable. It is 

 noticeable that our markets each succeeding year are better supplied with a good 

 variety of wholesome vegetables, and that our people are beginning to regard 

 them more in the light of a table necessity than a table luxury. There is still 

 room for the profitable employment of more land in this department of horti- 

 culture. 



It is gratifying also to observe that the business of propagating and culti- 

 vating flowers is growing in importance yearly. It is only a few years ago that 

 a well informed florist undertook to conduct a green-house in the city of Flint, 

 and failed from lack of patronage, Now there are two flourishing green-houses 

 in the same city and another is in process of construction at the present time. 



This is gratifying evidence that both the taste for flowers and the ability to 

 gratify it are increasing from year to year among our people. 



The buisness of farming the past year, while yielding as good returns prob- 

 ably as any ordinary line of industry or trade, has not been as profitable as could 

 be desired. But the cultivation of fruit has yielded relatively as large an in- 

 come as any department of farming, and is perhaps really the most profitable 

 branch of that industry. According to the best information I can get, the 

 average amount realized by the farmers of this county on an acre of wheat for 

 the year 1886, has been $14.40. The average value of the product of an acre 

 of apple orcharding has been $17.00. This is taking the entire acreage of or- 

 charding in the county. But that includes those wild wastes of apple tree forests 

 that are a disgrace to the county and worse than a burlesque on horticulture — 

 orchards that are allowed to run wild and not pruned or cultivated from decade 

 to decade- In those collections of apple trees that are fairly entitled to the 

 name of orchard, the average value of the year's product is nearer $40.00 than 

 $17.00, 



The present conditon of farming industry ought to be one of the strongest 

 arguments in favor of making much of the apple orchard. There is scarcely 

 any other crop more certain to give a profitable return, one year with another, 

 than the apple crop, and there is no farm labor that is better paid than that 

 devoted to the intelligent cultivation of apples. This is a fact that ought to be 

 forcibly impressed upon the minds of the farmers of the county, and one of the 

 objects of the Genesee County Horticultural Society ought to be to educate 

 farmers to an intelligent understanding of this truth. 



