338 ANNUAL REPOliT, 



A BEIEF OF HOETICULTUEE IN MICHIGAN. 



Mr. C. W. Garfield, secretary of the Michigan State Horticul- 

 tural Society, has kindly furnished us with advance sheets of his 

 report for the year 1884. We make a few extracts, which will 

 not be without interest to Minnesota horticulturists, and many 

 of the suggestions made will apply with almost equal force to 

 the climate, soil, and productions of our own favored State. He 

 says: 



"We have no immense wheat fields nor gold mines, nor moun- 

 tains of iron, nor is our land extravagantly fertile. Cotton is 

 not king, nor is corn queen. In truth we acknowledge no roy- 

 alty in any one product. But we have a nicely adjusted diver- 

 sity of products, leading to a great variety of industries, which 

 renders us capable of maintaining a large and prosperous i^opu- 

 lation. We supply our own needs to a very large extent by 

 patronizing the producers and manufacturers within our own 

 limits; and while doing this we need not be without the luxuries 

 of life i3roduced at our very doors. 



"Michigan is emphatically a State in which to build homes; 

 independent, attractive homes, in which is engendered a spirit 

 of rest and satisfaction that gives permanance to poj^ulation and 

 continuous prosperity to the inhabitants. It is very largely to 

 the growth of horticulture in our State that we have these con- 

 ditions so well developed. Bonanza farming would add nothing 

 to our prosperity. Small farms that are readily converted into 

 delightful homes, by bringing into them the refinements of edu- 

 cation, and about them the attractions of modern horticulture, 

 will be the foundation of Michigan's future prosperity. We 

 have outlived the stories of ague swales, barren hills, and sandy 

 plains. We show by our products, our people, and our standing 

 among the states that we need no forced advertising; and we 

 will frown down all attempts to deceive people by leading them 

 to think that we have a country in which caj)ital and hard work 

 are not the price of success. 



"One needs but to glance over the wide range of forest pro- 

 ducts of our State to learn the influence of our peculiar climatic 

 conditions upon the number and diversity of plants that succeed 

 in our State. In cultivated and introduced economic plants eni- 

 ployed by horticulture, this same wide range of species is notice- 

 able. In the same county which, under favoring circumstances. 



