PEACH YELLOWS. 233 



to 1821, but undoubtedly peaches were grown by Indians at a much earlier 

 date. Yellows was reported in Cayuga county in 1824, yet it was compara- 

 tively unknown twenty years later, what then existed having been, presump- 

 tively, imported from New Jersey in nursery stock. By 1861 yellows had 

 become ''quite at home " in some parts of western New York. In 1874, and 

 for a few years later, Niagara county was the center of extensive and highly 

 successful peach culture; but in that year yellow§ existed in at least one 

 orchard, and by 1887 the ruin was nearly complete. 



Brief mention is made of appearance of yellows m Ontario, Canada, in 1878, 

 but its ravages are not reported to have been so generally fatal as in this 

 country ; and of its real and presumptive existence in Indiana, from 1842 till 

 now, though Mr. Smith admits he has no positive information of it from the 

 southern part of the state. 



This brings him to consideration of Michigan, and we resume quotation : 



MICHIGAN. 



Peach growing in Michigan may, for convenience, be divided into an early, 

 middle and later period, the first and second periods ending, respectively, with 

 1839 and 1866. 



Michigan was settled much more recently than southeastern Pennsylvania, 

 New Jersey, Delaware or eastern Maryland. Although a fertile soil and a 

 favorable climate offered special inducements to settlers, the tide of immigra- 

 tion flowed steadily past the state for many years, and did not set strongly 

 into it until after 1830. Consequently, peach growing for commercial pur- 

 poses was begun more than one hundred years later than in the Atlantic coast 

 states. Seedling peaches were grown, however, in a small way, all over 

 southern Michigan from the time of the earliest settlements. 



In Berrien county, prior to 1809, Mr. Burnett planted peach trees, some of 

 which were living in 1829, twenty years after his death. Two years later 

 another pioneer, Samuel Wilson, found peaches growing in the Burnett 

 orchard. 



At this time most of the settlers in Berrien county had a few seedling 

 peach trees. 



In 1834 Mr. Brodiss, who lived six miles northwest of Niles, " brought 

 seedling peaches by the canoe-load down the St. Joseph river to peddle in 

 Saint Joseph." In 1837 peaches were also brought into Saint Joseph from 

 the Abbe orchard, said to have been set with improved trees sent from 

 Rochester, N. Y. 



In Van Buren county. Dolphin Morris planted peach pits as early as 1830, 

 and grew trees therefrom which lived many years. In 1836 Isaac Barnum 

 brought peach pits from New York and planted in Van Buren county. 



According to Harrison Hutchins, of Fennville, when the first whites set- 

 tled in the lake-shore region of Allegan county, about 1835, they found a 

 small peach orchard on Peach Orchard Point, on the Kalamazoo river, sup- 

 posed to have been planted by French traders. The growing of seedling 

 peaches by the settlers themselves began here soon after 1840. 



Mr. Hutchins, of Allegan county, also recalls that — 



Before the war small " hookers" (boats) sometimes came to Saugatuck, and carried 



thence small loads of peaches, half grown and fuzzy, to sell in the more northern 



markets among the lumbermen. Their arrival was hailed by the pioneers as a good 



■ opportunity to dispose of a few surplus peaches, although they usually carried apples. 



30 



