Vol. LVI. No. 2488. 
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 2, 1897. 
.00. PER YEAR. 
AN ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE AND WORK. 
It may interest many of the readers of The R. N.- Y. 
to know something of the work being done by that 
venerable pomologist, Mr. T. T. Lyon, as I saw it dur¬ 
ing a visit at his home in the outskirts of the village 
of South Haven, Mich. Mr. Lyon is in his 85th year, 
and is hale and hearty for so old a man, although 
feeling -the infirmities of age in failing eyesight aDd 
hearing, and loss of bodily strength. But his mind is 
as active as ever, and he will not as much as take a 
noon siesta, or in any measure relax an iota more 
than is absolutely necessary. He has no children, 
and his noble wife died a few years ago ; but he has 
a near friend of the family, who watches over him 
and his household affairs with the deepest and most 
careful regard. She told me that Mr. Lyon said, that 
he was so well 
taken care of, that 
he did not know 
but he might live 
always. For the 
world,it would be 
well if he could. 
He came from 
Lima, New York, 
when a mere 
school-boy, and 
after teaching 
school, helping to 
construct and 
manage a railroad, 
etc., in eastern 
Michigan, he nat¬ 
urally settled 
down to being an 
experiment po¬ 
mologist of the 
most thoughtful 
and accurate kind. 
His first plantings 
were made at 
Monroe, not far 
from Detroit, but 
over 20 years ago, 
he locate d a t 
South Haven, 
which is in the 
famous peach re¬ 
gion, upon the 
shore of Lake 
Michigan. The 
tract upon which 
he now lives and 
has all his exper¬ 
iment fruit plan¬ 
tations, is within less than 500 feet of the beach, and 
unprotected from the sweeping westerly winds, ex¬ 
cept by the bluff about 50 feet high, which drops 
sheer off to the water, and a windbreak of Norway 
spruce about 30 feet high on the west line, with a few 
other trees along the road just outside. The land 
lies almost on a dead level. The soil is inclined to be 
sandy, although it has loam enough to make it look 
dark, and the growth of all kinds shows that it is 
fertile. Underdrains are laid on a part of the tract, 
and water pipes from the town were laid to the build¬ 
ing this summer, and irrigation is within reach, and 
will be perhaps applied to a part of the fruits. One 
thing is certain, Lake Michigan is inexhaustible. 
There are 15 acres in the entire tract, and all set as 
closely as it may be with fruits of all kinds suitable 
to that climate. Ten acres of it belong to Mr. Lyon 
personally, and have been occupied by him as an ex¬ 
periment fruit farm for more than 10 years, 
In 1892, the State of Michigan through its experi¬ 
ment station at Lansing, rented and made a sub¬ 
station of Mr. Lyon’s plot, and the citizens of South 
Haven bought and donated to the State five acres ad¬ 
joining it. Therefore, the whole thing is now a part 
of the State experimental work, and under the con¬ 
trol of the State Board of Agriculture, but under the 
direct personal supervision of Mr. Lyon. The results 
of the experiments are published annually by the 
State, and are thoroughly reliable and worthy of the 
most respectful consideration by those who are about 
to plant any of the fruits tested. 
There are 129 different botanical species of fruits 
under test, including about 1,500 varieties. There 
were 156 kinds of strawberries, 53 of raspberries, 30 
of blackberries, 24 of currants, 20 of gooseberries, 191 
of peaches, 63 of cherries, 72 of plums, 37 of pears, 101 
of apples and 167 of grapes mentioned in the last re¬ 
port, and more of each have been planted since. The 
lesser known fruits are tested as well, in the hope of 
finding something to add to the approved list of good 
things. Occasionally, something is found to be of 
superior character, or some method of treatment that 
renders successful that which, otherwise, would not 
be. It would be quite impossible to go into details, 
in this general statement about the work. The report 
can be had. The records are kept in the most careful 
manner imaginable, and not only as to the names and 
dates of planting, but as to vigor, productiveness, 
hardiness, etc., or the reverse, as the case may be. 
This takes pomological skill, a knowledge of what 
other fruits are and have been, and what constitutes 
a good fruit. An opinion of a fruit is worth only so 
much as the one who gives it is able to say of it when 
compared with other fruits. Some opinions are worth 
very little. What Mr. Lyon says of fruits counts for 
much, because his range of knowledge is not only 
wide, but founded on critical and deliberate examina¬ 
tion. Besides, he has a clean mouth and a pure taste, 
uncontaminated by tobacco. I claim that no devotee 
of the goddess nicotine is fit to judge of the flavor of 
a fruit. Everything outdoors is as carefully done as 
inside. The most judicious systems of planting, train¬ 
ing, pruning and cultivation, are observed No weeds 
are allowed on the premises. The surface of the soil 
is kept as near like dust as the rains will permit. 
Evaporation from the soil is thus reduced to the 
minimum. 
But there is another work equally as important, in 
which Mr. Lyon is engaged. He is making a list of 
all the cultivated fruits of the Dnited States, past and 
present, as near as is possible, for the Division of 
Pomology of the United States Department of Agri¬ 
culture. This was commenced by me in 1888, and 
during Secretary Rusk’s administration, I was able to 
have Mr. Lyon appointed as a special agent, and the 
work was then turned over to him, because of his 
peculiar fitness for 
it. The plan was, 
and now is, to 
make a complete 
list of all the 
names of fruits 
and their syno¬ 
nyms, to dig out 
their origin, his¬ 
tory, and various 
changes, and de¬ 
cide upon the right 
one for each vari¬ 
ety, reduce it to 
its simplest and 
most authentic 
form, change it if 
absolutely neces¬ 
sary, translate in¬ 
to English in some 
cases, relegate the 
rest to synonyms, 
and place them all 
in alphabetical or¬ 
der under each 
species. This re¬ 
quires a most ex¬ 
haustive study of 
all the books on 
pomology, the 
nursery cata¬ 
logues and any 
other available 
source of informa¬ 
tion, together 
with examination 
of specimens, and 
much correspon¬ 
dence ; and, mor e 
than all, by a competent person. This, Mr. Lyon is 
suited to do, above all our pomologists, because of 
his long experience and accuracy in every detail. 
The apple is done, and the pear nearly so. This is 
the bulk of the work, and it is hoped that our vener¬ 
able friend may live to complete it, and to enjoy its 
benefits yet many years. 
When it should be done, the plan was to publish the 
list at Government expense, and distribute it freely 
to our fruit growers for use as a standard authority 
on fruit nomenclature. A part of the original plan 
was that, if the American Pomological Society 
would, through its Committee on Revision of the 
Catalogue, codperate in the matter, the two lists 
could be made to coincide. The society has done 
as suggested, and a report was made at the last 
meeting. Fig. 266 shows Mr. Lyon as he is now 
busily at work on this exacting and important task. 
See, also, Fig. 267, next page. h. e. van deman. 
MR. T. T. LYON AT WORK UPON THE NEW FRUIT LIST. Fig. 2 6 6. 
