History of Berrien and Van Buren counties, Michigan. With biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 33

Author: D.W. Ensign & Co. pub; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Johnson, Crisfield
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia, D. W. Ensign & Co.
Number of Pages: 821

USA > Michigan > Van Buren County > History of Berrien and Van Buren counties, Michigan. With biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 33
USA > Michigan > Berrien County > History of Berrien and Van Buren counties, Michigan. With biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 33

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In the shipment of peaches to an outside market, from any part of the territory of the counties of Berrien and Van Buren, precedence is claimed, and is unquestionably due, to the port of St. Joseph, as the region lying in the vicinity of that village is also entitled to priority in the raising of the fruit for the supply of the very small home demand. " Before peaches were sold in Chicago from this region, even before St. Joseph could supply itself with fruit, Mr. Brodiss, who lived six miles this side of Niles, brought his seedling peaches by the open wagon load to peddle in St. Joseph. This was in 1834." * At about the same time Theodore C. Abbe set out a small peach-orchard in the south part of the township of St. Joseph, near what is known as the " Gard School-House," having brought the trees from the nurseries of Rochester, N. Y. Mr. Abbe died soon after, and the trees upon his farm were removed and transplanted on the farm of John Pike, in the northwest part of the township of Royalton. There they flourished well, almost as a matter of course, and fruit from them was brought to St. Joseph village for sale in 1837.

In 1839 the first shipment of peaches to Chicago was made by Captain Curtis Boughton, who purchased the fruit from the few small producers in the vicinity, and transported it from St. Joseph, across the lake to the city, in his vessel, the schooner " Henry U. King." The novel experiment was pecuniarily successful, and was afterwards repeated by Captain Boughton, though of course not on an extended scale, as the amount of peaches which he was able to purchase was very limited. In 1843, David and John Byers, of Bainbridge township, produced their first crop of peaches, amounting to forty bushels, which they brought to St. Joseph and sold to the steward of Captain Ward's steamer for the sum of one hundred dollars. The purchaser sold them in Chicago, but the prices realized by him are not mentioned. It was from these insignificant beginnings that the peach trade of Western Michigan grew

* From a paper read by Mr. Chamberlain, of St. Joseph, before the State Pomological Society in 1872.

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THE FRUIT BELT.

to the immense proportions which it assumed a few years later.

Mr. Benjamin C. Hoyt was one of the early planters of fruit-trees at St. Joseph, and he was the first owner of any- thing which could properly be termed a nursery. In this nursery he had the first Crawford peach-trees which were seen in Western Michigan. Mr. Hoyt has also been men- tioned as being the first shipper of peaches to Chicago, but this seems to be clearly a mistake, though he was a shipper to some extent soon after Captain Boughton led the way. Among the earliest peach-growers in a small way in the neighborhood of St. Joseph was Mr. Eleazer Morton, of Benton (father of Hon. Henry C. Morton, of Benton Har- bor), and Lemuel L. Johnson, on the north side of the Paw Paw River, who, with those named above and some others, had, as Mr. Parmelee expresses it, " a few peach- trees of seedling sorts, generally in fence-corner rows, and rarely in orchard form."* These small producers con- tinued in this way, not materially increasing the number of their trees, nor attracting much attention until the time came when a succession of exceptionally cold winters de- stroyed a large proportion of the peach-trees of the interior, but left those within the fruit-belt unharmed. It was this fact which drew attention to the region contiguous to the eastern border of Lake Michigan, and resulted in the dis- covery of its superior capabilities for the production of fruit ; though at that time, and for some few years succeed- ing, it was believed that the favored section extended but a few miles at farthest from the mouth of the St. Joseph River. The circumstances above alluded to are mentioned more at length by Mr. T. T. Lyon, as follows :

"Several unusually severe winters occurring during the fifth decade of the present century, and coming upon us after the destruction of the forests of the State had become considerably advanced, gave our people the first clear and unmistakable evidence of an unfortunate modification of climate by inflicting serious injury upon many orchards of the apple, and nearly ruining the peach plantations of the State. Important and obvious as are now the advantages of the eastern shore of Lake Michigan for the cultivation of fruits, up to the period mentioned they were little under- stood or appreciated. It was not till the loss of their trees had enforced the lesson upon the people, and, moreover, till the growth of the Western cities had created a demand for fruit, that the success of casual experiment here began to draw special attention to these advantages.

" For a considerable period after public attention had become attracted to the importance of this exemption, it was popularly supposed to be limited to Berrien County and to the vicinity of St. Joseph. Hence, there suddenly arose at this point a wonderful inflation in the prices of fruit-lands, and an activity in orchard planting that can scarcely be said to have a parallel in the history of fruit culture. For this reason the history of lake shore fruit culture opens with the development of this interest here."

This demonstration of the superior advantages enjoyed by fruit-growers on the western border of the peninsula,

and the action taken soon afterwards by some of the more energetic ones, to avail themselves of its benefits by the planting of more and larger orchards, is termed by Mr. George Parmelee; " the inauguration of the peach belt in 1847." In this "inauguration" Mr. Parmelee himself took a somewhat prominent part. "About this time," he says, " pits of the peach known as ' Hill's Chili,' 'Stanley,' and other names, were planted by Mr. McKeyes, of Bain- bridge. At that time I owned an eighty-acre lot in the same town, and had planted on it that spring a small orch- ard of budded peach-trees, which I had bought of Col. Hodge's 'Buffalo Nursery.'" He, however, left this Bain- bridge farm (believing it would prove unfit for peach cul- tivation, on account of its elevation, and probably thinking also that the vicinity of St. Joseph was the only place where that fruit could be raised successfully), and in the spring of 1848 he set out, on the north side of the Paw Paw River, some two or three miles from Benton Harbor, an orchard of two and a half acres, comprising peach- and apple-trees, with a few pears, plums, and quinces. Captain Curtis Boughton set out an orchard of one hundred and thirty peach-trees in St. Joseph in 1849; and about the same time Dr. Talman Wheeler set out the " Teetzel orch- ard," and Mr. Eleazer Morton planted a small orchard in addition to the trees he already had. These orchards began to produce about 1852, and peaches from Captain Bough- ton's orchard (if not from the others) were sold in that year. "It was not," says Mr. Parmelee, "till after Mr. Boughton and I had sold choice peaches from our imported trees that there was much else than seedling trees planted, or budded trees from the better class of local seedlings. The first great impetus to peach-planting was given when I contracted my first considerable peach crop for fifteen hundred dollars, to be delivered in St. Joseph. The report went over the country, and it was magnified ridiculously, but it did its work ;" that is to say, it created a great rush into, the peach-raising business through all the country lying within a few miles of St. Joseph and Benton Harbor (which was then believed to be the one pre-eminently favored district), and more than quadrupled the prices of landst in that section.

t State Pom. Soc. Rep., 1874, p. 227.

¿ A few years later the prices of orchard lands in that vicinity had increased to fabulous figures, which really seemed to be warranted by the very large profits which accrued from the business of peach-grow- ing,-the yield of a single year amounting, in some instances, to fully $5000 per acre. From the small beginning made by Mr. Parmelee in 1848 he had in the course of a few years enlarged his orchard, and had put out ninety-eight acres ; had his lands well fenced, and in a high state of cultivation ; built a fine residence, costing some $6000, and corresponding outbuildings. All these improvements were made from his fruit, and from such a small beginning; and his property, so im- proved, sold for the handsome sum of $43,000. The " Cincinnati Or- chard"-the largest peach-orchard in the State, embracing originally about sixty-five acres in bearing, and located about one mile from Ben- ton Harbor-was planted by Smith & Howell, bankers, of Cincinnati and Lebanon, Ohio, on land leased for twelve years from Eleazer Mor- ton. After securing a succession of heavy and very profitable crops, they sold the trees and lease (when it had but three years to run) for $12,000, to Hopkins, Edwards & Willard, who the same year netted $15,000 from the crop, and realized about the same sum annually for the remainder of the lease. In 1871 this orchard produced over 37,000 baskets of peaches, which netted about $20,000.

Mr. Thresher, of Benton Harbor, stated that "as early as 1865

* This, however, is not a correct assertion as to Mr. Eleazer Morton, who had planted an orchard of apple-, peach-, and plum-trees as early as 1840, and in 1845 had sold his peach crop at one dollar per bushel.

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HISTORY OF BERRIEN AND VAN BUREN COUNTIES, MICHIGAN.

" The interest in fruit culture thus excited in the vicinity of St. Joseph* was not long in finding an echo from other points along the eastern shore of the lake. At South Haven, twenty-two miles north of St. Joseph, the next point affording suitable harbor facilities, orchards were planted about the year 1852, and from that time the interest gained strength slowly till the advent of the Kalamazoo and South Haven Railroad supplied an outlet eastward, and removed many of the serious embarrassments under which the locality had previously labored." The pioneers in orcharding at South Haven were Stephen B. Morehouse and Randolph Densmore, the former of whom removed there for the purpose of engaging in the business, and planted the first orchard in 1852. Mr. Densmore's orchard was planted on a lot adjoining that of Mr. Morehouse and at about the same time ; so it was only three or four years after orchard culture to any extent was commenced as a business at St. Joseph and vicinity, that it was also com- menced at South Haven. In 1857, Aaron S. Dyckman planted an orchard of four acres in extent, and about the same time James L. Reid commenced one on the lake-shore in the same township. S. G. Sheffer, Joseph Dow, and C. M. Sheffer set out orchards here soon afterwards, and a little later vineyards were commenced by Orris Church, A. S. Dyckman, Aaron Eames, and others. But here, although both soil and climate are equally well adapted to fruit cul- tivation, the progress made during the first few years was less rapid than it had been at St. Joseph and Benton Har- bor, for the reason that in the last-named region there was an abundance of cleared land, ready for the reception of fruit-trees, which was not the case to so great an extent in the South Haven district. This disparity, however, gradu- ally ceased to exist, and the fruit production of South Haven, as in other parts of Van Buren County, has steadily grown in extent and importance.

Concerning the fruit-growing interest of the eastern part of Van Buren County, Mr. Lyon, in his " History of Michi- gan Fruit Culture," remarks that among the earliest budded peach-trees in that section were a few brought from near Rochester, N. Y., by N. H. Bitely, in 1855. These were planted on a hill and stood the test of a very severe winter, while others on low grounds were killed. This attracted the attention of Mr. Columbus Engle, who owned some of the highest land in this region, and which he regarded as worthless. Observing this exemption, he at once planted these hills with fruit-trees, largely peaches. From this venture has grown one of the most successful fruit-planta- tions in the county, he having (up to 1878) failed of a crop but twice in eighteen years.

From these, and other similar beginnings in fruit culture, Van Buren has advanced to its present rank among the best fruit counties of the State. This result has been attained by energy and perseverance on the part of the orchard pro-

prietors, and the exercise of intelligence in their methods of cultivation, aided by unrivaled advantages in soil and climatic conditions. The statistics of the ninth census of the United States (having reference to the year ending June 1, 1870) show that the value of orchard products in the county of Berrien was $561,641, and in the county of Van Buren $135,910; Berrien standing first and Van Buren eighth in importance in this particular among the counties of the State. Four years later, by the State cen- sus of 1874, Van Buren had advanced to the second rank among Michigan counties in the value of orchard products. In the matter of peach production, in 1872, Berrien stood first among the counties, the production reported being 140,450 bushels, while Van Buren, producing 62,929 bushels, stood next in rank to Berrien. In 1873, Van Buren advanced to the rank of the first county in Michi- gan in peach production,-the crop reported being 9072 bushels,-and the adjoining county of Allegan took the second place. This result is shown by the reports of the last census,-that of 1874.

THE "YELLOWS" AMONG THE PEACH-TREES.

For a period of about twenty years from the time when systematic peach production for the market was commenced by a few enterprising men in the neighborhood of St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, the business continued to spread rapidly over nearly all the favored section of the lake-shore, and was prosecuted with almost marvelous pecuniary profit to the growers. Their success had been uniform and uninter- rupted ; the possibility of a failure of crops was scarcely thought of, and there seemed to be little reason to doubt that the prosperity of these earlier years would continue indefi- nitely. But at about the end of the period above named there came a warning of approaching disaster,-the first appearance of that scourge, the "yellows," which was des- tined to spread havoc among the peach-orchards of this hitherto exempted region to an extent amounting, in many localities, to an almost complete destruction of the business.

This fatal disease to peach-trees proceeds from a cause which may be said to be unknown, inasmuch as it has never been removed or satisfactorily explained ; ; and there is little more to be said of it than to notice its appearance and operation. The disease shows itself in the premature ripening of the fruit, sometimes that of the entire tree, but more generally that on one or more of its branches. The fruit becomes unnaturally red, especially at the pit, and ac- quires an insipid and unwholesome taste as it approaches maturity. The first indications are observed in the peach usually about one month before its ripening. In the first year of the disease the fruit grows nearly to its natural size, but is always marked with specks and large spots of purplish red. Internally, there appear small red specks in the part next the pit, first at the stem, and afterwards on every part of the pit. These increase daily in number, and gradually extend, until every cell contains one or more of

there were at St. Joseph and Benton Harbor no less than 207,639 peach-, 40,957 pear-, nearly 70,000 apple-, about 10,000 cherry-, 2500 quince-, and 3000 plum-trees, 35,000 grape-vines, and more straw- berry-, blackberry-, and raspberry-plants than could well be enumer- ated." Afterwards, at the time of heaviest production, the number of peach-trees given above had been trebled within the same limits. # History of Michigan Fruit Culture, by T. T. Lyon, of South Haven. Report State Pom. Society, 1878.

t Mr. Thomas Meehan, of the Germantown Nurseries, near Phila- delphia, Pa., however, expressed this opinion to Secretary Garfield, of the Michigan State Society : "There is no longer any more doubt about peach yellows being caused by root fungus than there is that the sun shines on a clear day. I fear your friends have not kept pace with the progress of discovery."

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the specks. Under the microscope, these specks are seen to be small red globules in the fluid of the cells. When exposed to one hundred and eighty degrees Fahrenheit in a fruit-dryer, these globules become dry, and remain in the cellular tissues. The effect on the peach is to render it un- palatable, unwholesome, and worthless.

On the tree, the presence of the disease is marked by the production, upon the affected branches, of very slender, wiry shoots, a few inches long, and bearing starved, diminutive leaves, which are very narrow, quite distinct from the natural size, and are either pale yellow or are destitute of color. The sap in the affected limbs acquires an orange color, a slimy touch, and a disagreeable, sickish smell. As the disease progresses, it can be traced down the trunk of the tree to the base, where tufts of unnatural growth are frequently found, and the new wood and bark of the tree acquire a softer, lighter, and more spongy growth. The disease does not appear to be either produced or prevented by any peculiarity of soil,* drainage, or exposure. Trees of all ages are attacked, and the most vigorous and healthy ones are not exempt. Mr. William R. Prince says, " The yellows is a disease which attacks all classes of peaches alike. It is analogous to the yellow fever, which attacks with equal vir- ulence all races of men,-black, white, copper-colored and yellow." The removal of limbs on which the disease first appears, the slitting of the bark, the application of wood ashes, lye, salt, potash, warm water, superphosphates, and many other supposed remedies have been applied, but they have had little or no effect in curing the disease or prevent- ing its spread. Nothing has been accomplished in this direction, except by promptly destroying and removing affected trees as soon as their prematurely ripened fruit gives warning that the blight is upon them. Mr. T. T. Lyon, who is excellent authority in such matters, expresses the opinion that the attempt to discover a specific for the cure of the yellows is as futile as were the efforts of the alchem- ists to transmute base metals into gold, or the search of the Spanish explorers for the fountain of perennial youth.

For some time after the disease appeared here many doubted that it was contagious, but that doubt has long since passed away. It has been repeatedly demonstrated by experiment that pollen taken from the blossoms of diseased trees, and used to impregnate the pistils of blossoms on healthy trees, conveys the disease to the latter. It is now universally admitted that the disease is contagious, and that its spread is only to be prevented by the prompt destruc- tion of affected trees.

In regard to the origin of the yellows within the Michi- gan fruit belt, we find it stated; that " the disease is supposed to have been introduced in this vicinity about the year 1862, by means of trees imported from New Jersey, which had been grown from buds of infected trees. But few trees were so affected, and it was several years later when the disease in the vicinity of Benton Harbor first assumed a contagious type." It is proper, however, to note that by many this statement of the manner in which it was first

introduced is pronounced entirely groundless. The diver- sity of opinion on the subject is, of course, very great.

The disease made its first appearance within the fruit- belt, in 1868, on Crawford trees in the plantations of John Whittlesey and A. O. Winchester, at St. Joseph,-in the neighborhood of the locality where successful peach-growing had its origin. Not more than half a dozen trees on these plantations were attacked by the disease in the first season of its appearance, and its spread was very slow during the three or four years next succeeding. The peach-orchards of the entire region were then bearing enormous crops, and they continued to do so afterwards ; the crop of 1869 being unusually large through all the district tributary to St. Joseph, as elsewhere. Four years after the first appearance of the disease it had not reached orchards five miles away from the trees which were first attacked, but about that time it began to spread with greater rapidity, and finally extended over the entire belt, or at least over that part of it which lies within the counties of Berrien and Van Buren (excepting, perhaps, a small area in the extreme southern part of the former), and northward to Allegan and Ottawa.

Its ravages have been greater and far more disastrous in the St. Joseph and Benton Harbor districts than in any other, partly because here were more and larger plantations than in any other section, and partly because, having ap- peared here first, it had gained a firm foothold and performed much of its destructive work before the fact became known that the only remedy is the prompt destruction of infected trees. " At St. Joseph and Benton Harbor," says Mr. Lyon,t " resort was had to experiments looking to the cure of the malady and preservation of the trees, but such ex- periments have proved futile, at least so far that almost the entire stand of peach-trees seems to have become affected, and to have, in subsequent seasons, either died outright, or been destroyed for the purpose of clearing the ground for plantations of other fruits. Indeed, so generally has this been done, that peach culture can hardly be said longer to be a leading interest here, while the end is not yet reached." It is true that the yellows disease has dealt to the peach- producing interest so staggering a blow that many people, having in mind the enormous production of former years, speak of the business as dead (though not without hope of resurrection) in the region which finds its outlet at the mouth of the St. Joseph River. But it is shown by the report of the deputy collector of the port of St. Joseph that in the past season (1879) there have been shipped from that port 78,299 baskets of peaches, 57,949 crates of berries, and 10,525 barrels of apples ; an amount which in itself seems large, and which, as regards the peach item, is only insignificant when compared with the enormous ship- ments of earlier years.

In the South Haven region, and at other points in Van Buren County, the disease appeared later than on the St. Joseph, and not until some knowledge had been gained as to its character and the only practicable method of prevent- ing its extension. When the first cases of yellows were discovered there (in 1873), the South Haven Pomological Society, thoroughly awake to the danger through the warn-

# It has, however, been asserted that no damage was ever done by yellows to trees growing on limestone or calcareous soils. + State Pom. Soc. Rep., 1878, p. 254.

# History of Michigan Fruit Culture, State Pom. Soc. Rep., 1878, p. 284.

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HISTORY OF BERRIEN AND VAN BUREN COUNTIES, MICHIGAN.

ing which had come down from the devastated orchards of Berrien County, took action at once, by the appointment of a committee, who, with general concurrence, enjoined upon all peach-growers and the community the summary de- struction of all infected trees wherever and whenever discovered. Besides this, the society memorialized the Legislature, asking the enactment of a law compelling such destruction ; and in this they were joined by producers in Allegan and Ottawa Counties. This resulted, in 1875, in the passage of an act* which provides "that any and all trees in the counties of Allegan, Van Buren, and Ottawa, whether peach, almond, apricot, or nectarine, infected with the contagious disease known as the yellows, shall be held to be without pecuniary value and their fruit unfit for use as food ; and that, as the best known means of preventing the spread of such disease, both tree and fruit so infected shall be subject to destruction as public nuisances." And the law makes it the duty of any township board who shall receive information from five citizens, of the existence of the yellows within the township, to appoint a commissioner, whose duty it shall be, upon discovering such infected trees, " to affix a distinguishing mark to each tree so affected, and immediately notify the owner or occupant of the premises on which such trees shall be standing" to destroy the con- demned trees within five days from such notice; also to proceed in the same manner in case of the discovery of any infected fruit, notifying the owner or person in charge of it

to withhold it from distribution, shipment, or sale, and to destroy it ; and in case persons so notified refuse or neglect to comply with the mandate within the time named, the commissioner has power " to immediately enter upon the premises, and effectually uproot and destroy such affected or diseased trees or fruit," and certain penalties are fixed by the law for non-compliance on the part of the owner or person in charge. But there is no occasion for the infliction of the penalty, for all willingly and eagerly co-operate to extirpate the scourge by the only known means,-the prompt destruc- tion of all trees bearing the marks of infection. "By the earnest employment of this means of eradication, although the disease is understood to have appeared as far north as Spring Lake, it appears to have gained very little strength, and if not fully suppressed, seems likely to be kept within very narrow limits." This is the opinion expressed in 1878 by Mr. T. T. Lyon in his " History of Michigan Fruit Cul- ture." It seems to have been measurably verified thus far, and it is to be hoped that it will prove correct hereafter.

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History of Berrien and Van Buren counties, Michigan. With biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 33

Author: D.W. Ensign & Co. pub; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Johnson, Crisfield Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia, D. W. Ensign & Co. Number of Pages: 821

Author: D.W. Ensign & Co. pub; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Johnson, Crisfield
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia, D. W. Ensign & Co.
Number of Pages: 821