During this period we note the voluntary organization of the Ontario Fruit-Growers' Association, a fact which alone would suggest that the production of fruit must have been making progress. The early French settlers along the Detroit River had planted pear trees or grown them from seed, and a few of these sturdy, stalwart trees, over a century old, still stand and bear some fruit. Mrs Simcoe, in her _Journal_, July 2, 1793, states: 'We have thirty large May Duke cherry trees behind the house and three standard peach trees which supplied us last Autumn for tarts and desserts during six weeks, besides the numbers the young men eat.' This was at Niagara. The records of the agricultural exhibitions indicate that there was a gradual extension of fruit-growing. Importations of new varieties were made, Rochester, in New York State, apparently being the chief place from which nursery stock was obtained. Here and there through the province gentlemen having some leisure and the skill to experiment were beginning to take an interest in their gardens and to produce new varieties. On January 19, 1859, a few persons met in the board-room of the Mechanics' Hall at Hamilton and organized a fruit-growers' association for Upper Canada. Judge Campbell was elected president; Dr Hurlbert, first vice-president; George Leslie, second vice-president; Arthur Harvey, secretary. The members of this association introduced new varieties and reported on their success. They were particularly active in producing such new varieties as were peculiarly suitable to the climate. For nine years they maintained their organization and carried on their work unaided and unrecognized officially. To this period belongs also the first attempts at special instruction in agriculture and the beginning of an agricultural press. Both are intimately connected with the association, already referred to, that had been organized in 1846 by some of the most progressive citizens.