12 FIRST FRUITS OF THE LAND. 



for some years that the real Yellow Newtown Pippin was 

 introduced into Oregon. The first box of apples placed 

 upon the sidewalk in Portland, by Mr. Luelling, was eagerly 

 purchased by the admiring fruit hungry crowd that gath- 

 ered about at one dollar per apple, and returned the neat 

 little profit of $75. 



The home market now showed many of the above men- 

 tioned fruits, which were eagerly sought at fabulous prices. 

 Apples brought as high as one dollar per pound by the 

 box, and in Portland retailed at one dollar and fifty cents 

 per pound readily, and all other fruits nearly as much. 



Californians, fruit hungry, with plethoric purses, bid 

 high for the surplus, and in 1853, a few boxes, securely 

 bound with strap iron (as was the. custom in those days for 

 protection against fruit thieves), were shipped to San Fran- 

 cisco and sold for two dollars per pound. 



In 1854 five hundred bushels of apples were shipped 

 and returned a net profit of from one dollar and fifty cents 

 to two dollars per pound. In 1855 six thousand bushels 

 were shipped and returned $20 to $30 per bushel. Young 

 trees were now in full bearing and the export of 1856 was 

 twenty thousand boxes. This year one box of Esopus 

 Spitzenberg paid the shipper a net profit of $60, and three 

 boxes of Winesap were sold in Portland at $102. From 

 this time to 1869 the fall and winter shipments bimonthly 

 to San Francisco, per steamer, was from three thousand 

 to six thousand boxes. . 



In those days the foundation for many a princely for- 

 tune was laid, and to-day many of our fellow citizens are 

 enjoying the merited reward of their enterprise in a lux- 

 urious competence and the "glorious -privilege of being 

 independent." But California with her proverbial enter- 

 prise, took in the situation and imported across the Isth- 

 mus of Panama thousands of young trees and root grafts, 

 which multiplied into millions, and orchards, which had 



