Oceana County MI Archives History - Books .....Fruit 1882
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/mi/mifiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Jan Cortez http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00020.html#0004939 December 17, 2008, 6:12 pm

Book Title: HISTORY OF OCEANA CO., CHICAGO, H.R. PAGE & COMPANY, 1882

Horticulture in Oceana County seems to have grown in interest in every year 
since the first settlers pitched their tents here in the unbroken wilderness.  
And as this county has been settled by people who are intelligent and 
enterprising, they were not slow to discover that if there was any real merit 
in the claims commonly put forth in favor of what is known as the Great Fruit 
Belt of Western Michigan, Oceana County must be the "Hub" - for a glance at 
the map will show that, from the location, she certainly is better protected 
by the lake than any other portion of the country bordering on the lake 
shore.  And the abundant success that has followed the efforts of the 
intelligent horticulturist, fully establishes the fact that they were not 
mistaken, and from present prospects it will soon be said of the orchards, as 
it was said of a certain man's cattle of olden time, that they are upon a 
thousand hills.

The first ten or twelve years after Oceana County began to be settled up, of 
course, there was but little fruit raised in the county, and the early 
settlers found a very good substitute in wild berries, of which this county 
produced so abundantly that hundreds of times when whole families, and 
sometimes two or three families together, rigged in almost anything except 
their Sunday clothes, with their baskets, well filled with dinner, and with an 
ox of team, went berrying, and when a group of merry raspberry and blackberry 
gatherers returned, the question was how many bushels, and if blackberries, 
raspberries and huckleberries did not come from spontaneous generation, they 
certainly did grow very abundantly.

But since the first fruit trees began to bear , many facts have been 
developed, indicating that this county is second to none in its adaptability 
for growing a great variety of fruit.

Lake Michigan, a body of water about 350 miles in length, and nearly 100 miles 
in breadth, and 900 feet deep, maintains a comparitively uniform temperature; 
and as this county is located so as to receive the north and west and south 
winds from off the lake, it has quite a perceptible influence during the whole 
year.  In the Winter, on account of the great depth, the lake does not freeze 
over, and during very severe cold the winds are tempered, and the result is 
that the fruit and fruit trees escape uninjured, while at the same time the 
mercury runs from ten to twenty degrees lower in the latitude of Cincinnati or 
St. Louis than it does here.

Another climatic advantage is in the Spring of the year there are miniature 
icebergs, the result of accumulated ice and snow along the shore during 
Winter, and heavy ice on the numerous lakes, of which there is one at the 
outlet of each stream, on the east shore of Lake Michigan (besides these there 
are many other small lakes), and these serve to keep the atmosphere cool, and 
consequently the fruit buds are not developed until well on in the season, and 
when the ice is all gone we have Summer.

Additional Comments:
HISTORY OF OCEANA CO., CHICAGO, H.R. PAGE & COMPANY, 1882


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/mi/oceana/history/1882/historyo/fruit106gms.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/mifiles/

File size: 3.7 Kb