1885.] TRANSACTIONS. 4l 



and convenience, with school-house yard laid out in lawns and 

 flower beds, with concrete-walks, and planted with shade-trees 

 and evergreens. We found evidences of taste and refinement 

 all about us, in the well kept lawns and elegant dwellings of 

 Queen Anne style, in which the eastern portion of the city 

 abounded. 



The scenery was unsurpassed in beauty. Mr. Barry, the pre- 

 siding officer of the convention, declared that the view of the city 

 from the bluflfs — lying as it does on either bank of the Grand 

 river, which, with its broad and rapid current, intersects the valley 

 of some half a mile in width — would alone repay each delegate 

 for the trouble and expense of his journey. 



The character of the population was no less surprising than 

 the evidence of thrift and worth. They were an intense 

 people. There were no dudes ; no dilettanti ; no loafers at the 

 street corners ; no idle gazings or questionings. Every man you 

 met was on the " qui vive " — civil and courteous but intent upon 

 the business in hand. There seemed to be no poor people — no 

 poor quarters. Everybody was apparently well-to-do. All the 

 dwellings however humble presented a neat and tidy appearance. 



Such was our place of meeting. And when the Convention 

 assembled and the work began, the wisdom of selecting such a 

 locality was soon apparent. It was in the first place in the heart 

 of the great apple .and fruit-growing region of the Northwest. 

 The State of Michigan has, within the last one or two decades, 

 been making quiet and almost unnoticed but rapid strides, not 

 only in wealth and population but in the importance of its agri- 

 cultural and mineral products. From the twenty-sixth State in 

 the Union in point of population it has risen to be now the ninth. 

 In the production of iron and copper ore and in the manu- 

 facture of salt and lumber it is the first in the United States. 

 In the raising of fine blooded horses it outranks every other 

 State not excepting Kentucky. Only three other States raise 

 more sheep. Only three other States produce more wheat. 

 Only seven other States have more capital invested in manu- 

 factures. 



But notwithstanding this wonderful development of mineral 

 and agricultural wealth, fruit-growing is destined to be, if it is 



