FIRST INTRODUCTIONS BY AMERICANS 47 



the cultivated fruit of Oregon consisted of seedlings introduced by the 

 Hudson Bay Company, in 1824, and by the early settlers from the 

 Mississippi Valley. In that year occurred the first considerable, if not 

 the very first, introduction of grafted fruit upon the Pacific coast. 

 The story of that venture has been so often wrongly told that it is 

 well to record its interesting incidents in the words of one quite near 

 to the event, if not actually participating in it. Seth Lewelling, of 

 Milwaukee, Oregon, writes : 



In 1847 my brother, Henderson Lewelling, crossed the plains from Henry 

 county, Iowa, to Oregon, bringing with him a pretty general variety of grafted 

 fruits. He fitted up a wagon for the purpose, selected small plants, and planted 

 them in soil in the boxes and watered them to keep them alive. He told me that 

 in some places he had to carry the water a mile up the mountains to save his 

 trees. When he arrived in Oregon, late in the fall, he had something over three 

 hundred plants alive. The same fall William Meek arrived in Oregon with a few 

 varieties of fruit trees. He and my brother put their stock together, arid com- 

 menced the first nursery of grafted fruits on the Pacific coast. It was situ- 

 ated five miles south of Portland, just below Milwaukee, on the east bank of the 

 Willamette river. For want of seedling stock, they could not increase their 

 nursery much until, in 1850, my brother John and I crossed the plains, bringing 

 with us some apple seed, which we planted that winter. We also found a gentle- 

 man named Pugh, in Washington county, Oregon, who had planted some apple 

 seed in the spring of 1850, which had grown well, and we bought his stock. 

 During the winter of 1850-51 we put in about twenty thousand grafts. In March, 

 1851, I went to Sacramento, taking with me a box of grafts of apple, pear, peach, 

 plum and cherry, and sold them in Sacramento. I believe I have the honor of 

 being the first to distribute grafted fruit in California. 



Other Early Introductions. The introduction of grafted trees, 

 for sale by Mr. Lewelling in the spring of 1851, was quickly followed 

 by other commercial importations, and by shipments 'by planters 

 for their own use, so that the plantings of 1851-52 were quite large. 

 Still there was great doubt as to the success of the trees. The late 

 G. G. Briggs, after his great melon profits of 1851, went back to New 

 York State for his family, and, returning to California, brought with 

 him, as he says, "with no idea that they would succeed, but as a 

 reminder of home," fifty peach and a few apple and pear trees. To 

 his surprise, the trees grew well in 1852, and the next year blossomed 

 and bore some of the best peaches he ever saw. The pears also bore 

 some fine fruit the same year. 



Besides the introduction of grafted trees which have been men- 

 tioned, there were others in 1852, for, at a fair held in San Francisco 

 in 1853, there were several kinds of apples, grown by Isaac A. Morgan, 

 of Bolinas, on trees planted the previous year. Apples were also shown 

 from Napa. David Spence, of Monterey, showed the first almonds 

 grown in California. During the winter of 1852-53 the distribution 

 of grafted trees must have extended widely over the State. Five 

 dollars for a small tree was frequently paid at the nursery of Meek 

 and Lewelling, in Milwaukee, Oregon, and the trees were carried 

 overland into the mining districts of California, as well as brought to 

 San Francisco for distribution through the valleys. 



Fruit Gardens, not Orchards. It is interesting to note that 

 much of the pioneer effort was expended upon fruit gardens rather 



