FRUIT MATTERS IN MICHIGAN DISCUSSED 



J. I,, nil, HORN', I.I-; 



1HAD the pleasure and profit of attend- 

 ing, as representative of the Ontario 

 Fruit Growers' Association, the annual 

 meeting of the Michigan State Horticultural 

 Society. The meetings were held Decem- 

 ber 6, 7, 8 at Jienton Harbor, a beautiful 

 town of some io,ooo inhabitants, situated 

 on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan in 

 the midst of the Michigan fruit belt. 



Three years ago I visited this famous 

 fruit section and spent a day or two inspect- 

 ing the numerous peach orchards and vine- 

 yards for which the . locality is noted. 

 Among those visited was the much lauded 

 and finely kept 2O0-acre orchard of Mr. 

 Roland Morrall, who believes in and prac- 

 tices tile most thorough cultivation and 

 pruning. I liked his system of pruning 

 the best of any J have seen. He has few 

 main branches and these are regularly 

 shortened quite heavily, making very stalky, 

 strong trees, which have produced many 

 very profitable crops. 



There are many other very fine orchards 

 in that vicinity and the best kept vineyards 

 1 have ever seen. The latter are all trained 

 on horizontal trellises and most of them are 

 carefully looked after. As the fields are 

 quite level in the vicinity just south of Ben- 

 ton Harbor, where most of the grapes are 

 grown, they present a very attractive ap- 

 pearance. We also visited a number of 

 fine large peach orchards in the vicinity of 

 Fenwell and Douglas, nearly all of which 

 are headed much loAver than they are 

 usually grown in Canada and annually cut 

 back quite heavily. 



The 1904 annual meeting was a decided 

 success. There was a nice display of plate 

 fruit of good quality. The superintendent 

 of the South Haven Experimental Station. 

 Mr. T. A. Farrand, had a fine display of 

 fruits grown there, including a dozen or so 

 plates of nuts. He gave us a valuable ad- 

 dress on varieties of apples, peaches, plums, 

 cherries, nuts, etc., which they had tested. 



16 



v.AMlNGTON^ OXT. 



Prof. W. J. Green, horticulturist of the 

 Ohio station at Wooster, gave an interest- 

 ing address on mulching orchards. He is 

 strongly in favor of the sod mulch for or- 

 chards of all varieties of fruits. He pre- 

 fers to have a sod field to start with and to 

 dig good sized holes in the fall, planting the 

 trees in the spring and mulching heavily a 

 space four feet in diameter. The grass 

 is mowed once or twice during the season 

 and part of it is placed around the trees 

 while they are >x)ung. It is left where 

 cut after the trees get large. The speaker 

 was well acquainted with the famous Hitch- 

 ing orchards, also several others handled in 

 much the same way, which he claimed 

 are entirely successful. They have been 

 experimenting with that method for several 

 years at the Ohio station, and the speaker 

 claimed the results were very satisfactory. 

 They tried it on a block of peach trees, cul- 

 tivating half of it. The other h-alf was 

 seeded to grasses and the trees mulched. 

 The latter grew as well as the culutivated 

 portion and came through last winter in 

 good condition, while the trees that were 

 cultivated were all more or less injured. 



A lively discussion followed the address 

 and many theories were offered in objec- 

 tion, but the speaker claimed that the suc- 

 cess of the orchards that had received this 

 treatment was the best argument. The 

 only real objections, he said, are danger 

 from mice and fire. The former is over- 

 come by removing the mulch directly 

 against the trees and earthing them up. By 

 exercising proper care there is not much 

 danger of fire. 



The meetings throughout were well at- 

 tended and much interest was shown in 

 each session. The writer received every 

 attention and kindness from the officers and 

 members of the society and was assured 

 that they would send a representative to the 

 annual meeting of the Ontario Fruit Grow- 

 ers' Association next vear. 



