50 CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW THEM 



and the advantage also of winning the attention of those who went 

 out, not as gold seekers, but as agricultural producers. Oregon 

 had grafted trees in bearing, and nursery stock as well, about the 

 time the demand sprang up for it in California. Its introduction 

 was then, however, of very recent date. Up to 1847 the cultivated 

 fruit of Oregon consisted of seedlings introduced by the Hudson 

 Bay Company and by early settlers from the Mississippi Valley. In 

 that year occurred the first considerable, if not the very first, intro- 

 duction 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 m y 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 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, and commenced the first 

 nursery of grafted fruits on the Pacific Coast. It was situated five miles 

 south of Portland, just below Milwaukee, on the east bank of the Willa- 

 mette 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 gentleman 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 dis- 

 tribute grafted fruit in California. 



Other Early Introductions. The introduction of grafted trees, 

 ior 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 



