KELLOGG OFFICE FORCE AND MAIN ENTRANCE TO OFFICE 
THE Twenty-Second Anniversary of the 
establishment of the Kellogg Strawberry 
Plant Farms affords an occasion for a 
brief review of the history and develop- 
ment to its present proportions of this unique 
and extraordinarily successful institution. After 
twelve years of study, observation and exper- 
ience on a smaller but somewhat similar farm at 
Ionia, in this state, Russell 
ofTe 'he founder of 
Kellogg Firms '''^^^ farms, determined to 
seek a field of larger en- 
deavor and set out to find a location which 
combined what he deemed the necessary requis- 
ites, namely , ample land for expansion, composed 
of a soil adapted to the work; ample water sup- 
ply for irrigating purposes, should irrigation be 
required in an extended drought, and ample 
shipping facilities. All these he found in the 
farm he bought at Three Rivers in the spring of 
18%, and here he came in that year and began 
the work destined to make famous the Kellogg 
strain of Thoroughbred strawberry plants. 
T^HE work Mr. Kellogg had done at Ionia 
* won for him more than local fame and a 
patronage of fair proportions, but he began 
business here on a small scale — feeling his way 
to larger triumphs, as it were. His purchase 
consisted of an old homestead with a stately 
mansion and something a little under one hundred 
acres of land, lying on the banks of the Portage 
river, one of the three streams that give to this 
city its suggestive name. A portion of the 
farm was broken up and 
prepared for plant setting. Genesis of 
and in 1897 the first crop „ 
, , -r-i Present Farm 
Of plants was grown. 1 hen 
the business steadily grew, until the entire 
original hundred acres was given over to the 
growing of plants. That is, approximately 
fifty acres of plants were grown each year, two 
fields alternating between cow peas, or some 
other legume, and strawberry plants; it being 
the rule of the farm never to grow two crops of 
plants in succession on the same ground. 
tiUT greater things were in store. The faith- 
ful, intelligent work of years had not only 
built up a permanent patronage, but the fame 
of "'Kellogg' s Thoroughbred Pedigree Plants" 
annually brought an army of new customers, 
vi'hile old patrons increased their orders each 
year, and in 1903 an addi- 
tion to the farm of sixty- •^"P"'' G'-ow'h 
, ' . of the 
one acres was made, and „ . 
, Dusmess 
the area given over to plants 
each year relatively extended. Still the business 
continued to expand. One year $13,000 in cash 
was returned to customers because the demand 
for these famous plants was larger than the 
supply and their orders could not be filled. 
OOPVRIOHT ig06 BY ft. M. KILLOOO OO. 
