THE SPARTA SENTINEL,

noticed in the history of Sparta township, is published by J. W. Halleck. Its news columns are devoted principally to local happenings. This little journal is well supported and has all the qualities which can tend to its advancement.

CHAPTER XIV.

MISCELLANEOUS.

AGRICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE.

The history of the progress of these arts is also the history of political and commercial development. In every age has the agriculturist been civilization's pioneer. In the settlement of this county we learn that even the French trader converted the hillside, from his log cabin to the banks of the Grand river, into a beautiful garden, and close by cultivated both corn and cereals. Agriculture leads permanent prosperity to its side, and prepares the road for great enterprises. With it, as a main stay, the manufacturing industries are built upon secure foundations, and that portion of humanity whose days are devoted to hard and honest labor in the mills and factories of the land, may enjoy the fruits of the agriculturist's fields at a reasonable price, where the unfortu nate denizen of a purely manufacturing city is compelled to pay fabulous prices for the necessaries of life.

It has been stated that with the progress of agriculture the entire State has progressed; numberless sources of wealth in minerals, timber and fish have been brought to light; cities have sprung into existence as by the touch of an enchanter's wand, rivaling, in population and the importance of their commerce, many on the seaboard that have been struggling forward almost from the landing of the first colonists; political communities have been foundeo possessing almost a preponderating weight in the great family of States. Persons devoted to commerce and the mechanical arts did not initiate this startling development; they, being dependent upon agriculture, do not precede it into a new country, they follow in its wake. This rapid expansion of population and this wide-spread improvement are to be ascribed to the stout-hearted enterprise of farmers. They have led and sustained the tide of emigration westward from over-populated districts, and drawn hither every other industrial, social and business element, and co-working has produced such astonishing results. The pioneer record is peculiarly theirs. Great energy, a contempt for hardships, privations and dangers, and a fortitude to endure disease and other and countless. discomforts, familiar to the early settlers of a country, distinguish them in an eminent degree. Every locality has some interesting reminiscence or tradition of these dauntless men. The impress of their plucky experience is fixed indelibly on the public mind in the towns and counties in which they were among the first to live

and labor. Though they may not rank with Putnam and Boone of national fame, in respect to the brilliant incidents and achievements of their pioneer lives, still their memories are long cherished with affectionate and admiring interest, and honored as the Republic ever honors the brave and the deserving.

Agriculture, wherever it is practicable, is a great and enduring local interest. A district or country which admits of no profitable cultivation of the soil, and where, therefore, it is neglected, can possess no attraction to a permanent population, unless, indeed, its mines, its lumber or its salt fountains may so stimulate the greed for wealth as to overcome a natural repugnance to being separated from this source of supplies, and the rural charms ever associated with the labor of the husbandman.

HORTICULTURE IN WESTERN MICHIGAN.

As the history of the county seat begins with Louis Campau, so also must we refer to him as the initiator of horticulture in the valley of the Grand river within the historic period. The history of the rise and progress of horticulture in Kent county is interesting and instructive. As treated by Charles W. Garfield, it is historically valuable, as it deals not only with the men who were its early promoters, but it also points out the date and species. He says:

The earliest history of horticulture in Kent county is connected with Grand Rapids as a French trading post. Louis Campau, previous to 1834, had improved a piece of land extending from the present site of the Rathbun House, on the corner of Monroe and Ottawa streets, to the Eagle Hotel, and from thence to the river bank. This was a vegetable and flower garden, with shrubbery and trees scattered through it, and a few fruits. The most attractive thing about it was the flowers, and it was a place of resort for whites and Indians. The latter used to land from their canoes and go up a well-trodden path to Mr. Campau's house. An old canoe answered for a propagating bed in which to start things before they were planted in the garden.

About the year 1835 Mr. Abel Page moved to Grand Rapids and located on the bank of the river, near the foot of Huron street. Mr. Page and John Almy, his nearest neighbor, started gardens on the bank of the river and planted in them such things as they brought from the East and could get through the mails from friends, in the form of seeds and slips. They also made some selections. from the woods. It was in Mr. Page's river garden that the first tomatoes were raised in the Grand River Valley. They were a great curiosity and grown as ornamental plants, and called "love apples." There was but one person in the county that would eat them, and that was a school-teacher. This was a matter of astonishment to the people, and at first dire consequences were expected as a result. For a good many of the first things planted in the gardens of the settlers

they were indebted to the kindness of Uncle Louis Campau, who grew nothing to sell but gave many things away.

In 1838 Mr. Page moved up on Bridge street hill and planted another garden with a sort of nursery attachinent, the whole occupying perhaps three acres. This was the year of the great flood in the river, which occurred in February. It was in this second garden that Mr. Page grew Morus multicaulis and raised silk worms, dealing in the cocoons. It was about this time that the Rohan potato had such a great run. Mr. Page raised specimens that would weigh two pounds, and sold them for seed at the rate of from $16 to $20 per bushel. The fruit grown in this garden was grown largely from plants found in the woods. Mr. Page and his sons gathered gooseberries, currants, raspberries and blackberries, as well as plums, from the valley of the Grand river, and by careful selection succeeded in growing very fine smooth gooseberries of large size; black-caps were grown that rivaled the cultivated sorts in size and quality; white blackberries were found and propagated, and plums were found, large and delicious, that ripened as early as August. All these, added to the slips of cultivated fruits and ornamental shrubs, made the nucleus of the future nursery.

The first apple-seeds planted were from fruit gathered from the old French trees about Detroit and shipped to Grand Haven around the lakes, and from thence up the river in Mackinaw boats. The apples were eaten with the understanding the seeds were to be saved, and no guest was treated to any of the fruit without this promise being put in. A quart of seeds thus obtained were sown at the same time a bushel of peach nuts were planted, producing trees that were sold readily without a budding at good prices.

Mr. Page grew the white cranberry here, and his garden was the resort for people who wished a feast of fruit. He also raised about the first melons in the county.

It might be well to speak of the nearest attempt at gardening outside of Grand Rapids. As early as 1835-'6 "Yankee " Lewis had a nice garden at Yankee Springs, on the edge of Barry county, and people coming through from Kalamazoo were delighted with his thrift and good taste. Upon the site of this garden are now located orchards containing over 1,000 trees in a prosperous condition. Really, the nursery business proper, in Kent county, was started by Abel Page and his sons in the year 1845. It was planted north of Coldbrook, and the 10,000 root grafts were purchased at Monroe, of one Hartwell, a nurseryman there. Twothirds of these were apples, the remainder divided between pears, cherries, plumbs, etc. To these more were added rapidly, until in two or three years the number of trees in the nursery reached 250,000, and for nearly 20 years about this amount of stock was carried.

In 1850 the first mammoth pie-plant root was brought into the county by the father of John B. Colton, in a pot swung under his wagon. From this Mr. Page secured a slip for one dollar, and the

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next year sold five dollars worth of plants from it, and two years thereafter sold Judge Withey enough pie plant for Independence Day's dinner, for two dollars.

The first Lombardy poplar was brought into the county by Samuel White, and planted near the head of Stocking street. From this, slips were taken to stock the Coldbrook nursery. When getting the first nursery stock at Monroe, Mr. A. F. Page secured a quart of seed from the common yellow locust; this was planted, and from the seed, in a few years, over $2,000 worth of trees were sold.

A few trees of the very best sorts were imported from Hodge's nursery, at Buffalo, by Page, while he was starting his nursery. These were most of them sold again, but a few were retained and planted out in the nursery grounds from which to get grafts, and to use as an advertisement for the nursery as they came into bearing. The first fruit thus grown was very precious and preserved with the greatest of care. The first trees sold were seedlings, and customers asked no questions. They were glad to get anything of fruit-tree kind, but as soon as the first grafted trees bore, more anxiety was shown in getting good varieties. The root grafts bought by Page were some of them sold at three years of age, and distributed through Kent, Ionia and Ottawa counties.

About 1855 Hiram Rhodes established a nursery on the river front, below Ada, and H. N. Peck started about the same date in the town of Grand Rapids. The Kellogg nursery was started a little later, on the hill between Fountain and Fulton streets, and was afterward purchased by George Nelson. As soon as the Detroit & Milwaukee railroad was completed to Grand Rapids, nursery stock, the refuse of Eastern nurseries, was shipped to the Grand River country, and sold at rates far below what the stock could be grown for here, and hence the business was gradually dropped. Soon after this the Husteds started near Lowell and ran a large nursery business until 1873.

In 1836 Mr. Robert Hilton came to Grand Rapids, and the only two orchards started that were talked about then were those of Burton, in Paris, and Chubb, in Grandville. Mr. Hilton's farin was in Walker (Tallmadge?), and in 1840 he planted 50 apple-trees about 40 rods from the river. In 1845 he planted 300 more grafted apple-trees, purchased of George Barker, who had a small nurser ̧” out on West Bridge street, near the city limits, and of a small nursery that stood on the south of Monroe street, near where the Aldrich block now stands. The orchards are standing now, and before Mr. Hilton left them, in 1848, some of the trees bore well. From two trees of the Fameuse variety he took one year (probably 1845) 211 bushels. He grew peaches on the land near the river, and in those days this locality seemed very free from frosts, even more so than the higher ground.

The towns of Caledonia and Bowne were originally one, and the first trees taken in there had a very interesting history. Mr. Reu