Appendix. 125 



cherry, plum, prune, peach, grape, and berries — a full assortment of 

 all the fruits grown in the then far West. These were placed in soil 

 in two large boxes, made to fit into a wagon bed, and carefully watered 

 and tended on the long and hazardous six-months journey with an ox 

 team, thousands of miles, to the banks of the Willamette just north of 

 the little townsite of Milwaukie, Clackamas County. 



Here a little patch in the dense fir forest was cleared away with 

 great labor and expense, and the first Oregon orchard, was set that 

 autumn with portent more significant for the luxury and civilization of 

 this country than any laden ship that ever entered the mouth of the 

 Columbia. A fellow traveler, William Meek, had also brought a sack 

 of apple seed and a few grafted trees; a partnership was formed and 

 the firm of Luelling & Meek started the first nursery in 1848. Roots 

 from seedling apples planted at Oregon City and on F'rench Prairie,, 

 and sprouts from the wild cherry of the vicinity, and wild plum roots 

 brought in from Rogue River Valley, furnished the first stock. And it 

 is related that one root graft in the nursery the first year bore a big 

 red apple, and so great was the fame of it, and such the curiosity of 

 the people, that men, women, and children came from miles around to 

 see it, and made a hard beaten track through the nursery to this joyous 

 reminder of the old homestead so far away. 



Ralph C. Geer also came in 1847 and brought one bushel of apple 

 seeds and half a bushel of pear seeds, and was one of the first to plant 

 an orchard in the Waldo Hills. 



People in those days in this sparsely settled country knew what their 

 neighbors were doing, and in the fall of 1848 and spring of 1849, they 

 came hundreds of miles from all over the country for scions and yo.ing 

 trees to set in the little dooryard or to start an orchard; so that the 

 trees were soon distributed all over the settlements of the valley — 

 yearlings selling at 50 cents to $1 each. 



The first considerable orchards were set on French Prairie, and n 

 the Waldo Hills, and about Salem. Of apples the following varietie^i 

 were common : Red Astrachan, Red June, Talman's Sweet, Summ..n- 

 Sweet, Gravenstein, White Winter Pearmain, Blue Peirmain, Genst, 

 Gloria Mundi, Baldwin, Rambo, Winesap, Jennetting, Seek-no-furthe \ 

 Tulpahocken, American Pippin, Red Cheek Pippin, Rhode Island Green- 

 ing, Virginia Greening, Little Romanite, Spitzenberg, Swaar, Waxen, 

 and a spurious Yellow Newtown Pippin since called Green Newtown 

 Pippin — a worthless variety which has since caused much trouble to 

 nurserymen, orchardists, and fruit buyers, and brought by mistake for 

 the genuine — and other varieties not now remembered. 



Of pears, the Fall Butter, Pound Fear, Winter Nelis, Seckle, Bavt- 

 lett, and others. 



Of cherries. May Duke, Governor Wood, Oxheart, Blackheart, Black 

 Tartarian, Kentish, and others. 



Peaches, the Crawford, Hale's Early, Indian Peach, Golden Clinj, 

 and seedlings. 



