WEST MICHIGAN FRUIT GROWERS' SOCIETY. 87 



PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF FRUIT GROWING IN MICHIGAN. 



A complete history of all this would fill a large volume. But what I 

 apprehend you desire is a brief resume of the subject from an economic 

 standpoint. 



In the ''fifties" the peach business in Michigan was just taking root, main- 

 ly at St. Joseph. In the "sixties" the large prices realized, sometimes as 

 high as $7 per basket, gave a wonderful impetus to the business, and there 

 was a large area planted, mainly at St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, Grand 

 Haven and Spring Lake. The next decade (the seventies) brought a no less 

 remarkable set-back to peach culture. Yellows and the severe winters of 

 1873 and '75 reduced tne peach orchards to a small fraction of what they had 

 been. Oar great rival in peach production (southern Illinois) was equally 

 or perhaps worse injured than Michigan by the same causes. 



But for the supply from Delaware and Maryland which began western 

 shipment in 1875, Chicago and the great northwest would have been for the 

 next several years almost destitute of peaches. Since this period of calamity 

 peach planting an 1 culture nave been pursued more prudently and wisely, 

 the most favorable situations and methods being well considered, so that now 

 we may say the business is on a more safe basis. The chances of failure 

 have been greatly reduced and the probabilities of a regular supply greatly 

 increased. 



THE STATUS IN 1870 TO 1886. 



Some time during the first half of the seventies an inventory of the number 

 of peach trees in orchard, in the then principal peach regions, was taken. 

 The region around St. Joseph and Benton Harbor had about 900,000 trees, 

 and about Grand Haven and Spring Lake about 300,000 trees, and perhaps 

 Allegan and Van Buren counties had 100,000, and the balance of the state 

 100,000 peach trees. This would make an aggregate for twelve or thirteen 

 years ago, of 1,400,000 trees. At that time southern Illinois, besides sections 

 of other states, was shipping immense quantities of peaches to Chicago and 

 other western cities. There was a lively demand for peaches in the fresh 

 state, subject only to those losses which unfavorable weather in the peach 

 harvest will always bring. There was very little canning and drying of peaches 

 in the west at that time. 



Now, with the population of the upper Mississippi valley largely increased, 

 how do you suppose the area in peaches in Michigan will compare with that 

 period? Without the statistics necessary to determine definitely, I venture 

 the assertion that there are not in Michigan, in good growing condition, more 

 than 1,000,000 peach trees. Perhaps this meeting can give estimates by which 

 we may be able to approximate the actual number. If my estimate be cor- 

 rect we have not yet reached the number we had before the hard winters 

 of 1873 and 1875. Then the upper Mississippi valley (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 

 Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, and 

 Dakota), did not contain more than 15,000,000 inhabitants. Now the same 

 territory probably contains about 20,000,000 inhabitants. These million 

 trees, old and young, probably "do not yield, in a good year, more than an aver- 

 age of one basket to the tree. This is only one basket to every twenty inhab- 

 itants. 



