Modern fruit-growing on the Pacific Coast, however, began in Oregon. The
California Argonauts of '49 were much too busily engaged in digging gold
to think of getting it indirectly by tilling the soil, whereas the men
who were then crossing the plains from Missouri or sailing around the
Horn from New England to Oregon were home-makers and true tillers of the
soil. These early Oregonians were the forerunners in the zeal and
enterprise which have made horticulture on this coast the marvel of
modern agriculture. But one of the several early horticulturists of
Oregon can be mentioned here, he deserving special mention by virtue of
his work with cherries.
Until 1847 the few cultivated fruits to be found in Oregon were
seedlings mostly grown by employees of the Hudson Bay Fur Company. In
that year there was a notable importation of cultivated fruits across
the plains--a venture which quickly proved pregnant with results in
fruit harvests which have not ceased and give promise long to continue.
Henderson Lewelling crossed the plains from Henry County, Iowa, and
brought with him a choice selection of grafted fruits. These he
transported in boxes of soil which he hauled in a wagon drawn by oxen.
Arriving in Oregon late in the fall of 1847 he found that he had 300
trees alive which he planted at what is now Milwaukee, a few miles south
of Portland on the east side of the Willamette River. Later, seeds were
brought for stocks, though for the cherry the wild species, _Prunus
emarginata_ and _Prunus virginiana_, were used and very successfully,
until Mazzard and Mahaleb seeds could be obtained. In this travelling
nursery, Lewelling brought to Oregon cherries of the Bigarreau, the
English Morello and probably of several other types. The label of one of
the cherries was lost and this unknown was renamed Royal Ann.
Unfortunately, it was one of the best known of all cherries that for the
time being lost its identity--the Napoleon, which probably has been
cultivated for three centuries and since 1820 has borne the name of the
great General. With dogged perseverance the West Coast fruit-growers
continue the name "Royal Ann" to the great confusion of systematic
pomology.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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