152 THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 



J. H. Lambert, Milwatikee, Oregon. This seedling, supposed to have been 

 a cross between Napoleon and Black Heart, was grafted to May Diike 

 and later transplanted. About 1880, the top died and a sprout from the 

 seedling stock formed a new top. Mr. Lambert gave the new variety his 

 name and in 1895 turned over his stock to the Oregon Horticultural Society 

 with the exclusive right to propagate. The variety was placed on the 

 fruit Hst of the American Pomological Society in 1899 where it still remains. 



Tree mediiun to large in size and vigor, upright-spreading, very productive; branches 

 smooth, dull reddish-brown, with numerous small lenticels; branchlets thick, long, dark 

 reddish-brown nearly covered with ash-gray, smooth, glabrous, with a few inconspicuous 

 lenticels. 



Leaves four and one-fourth inches long, two and one-half inches wide, folded upward, 

 oval to obovate, thin; upper surface medium green, smooth; lower surface light green, 

 lightly pubescent; apex acute, base abrupt; margin doubly serrate, glandular; petiole 

 one and one-half inches long, dull red, glandless, or with from one to three rather small, 

 globose, reddish glands on the stalk. 



Buds large, pointed or conical, free, arranged singly as lateral buds or in small 

 clusters on short spurs; leaf -scars prominent; season of bloom intermediate, short; flowers 



Oregon, February 2ist, 1897. When the boys were still very yoimg their parents moved from North 

 Carolina to Ohio and foiinded the town of Salem in Ross County; later they moved to Indiana where their 

 father established a nursery and became one of the pioneer fruit-growers of what was then the West and 

 here again they foimded a town of Salem. We next hear of Henderson Lewelling in Salem, Henry County, 

 Iowa, the town of his naming, with the statement that in 1837 he planted a small nursery of 35 varieties 

 of apples and some peach, plum and cherry trees. 



The history of the LeweUings now becomes more definite for we have it from Seth Lewelling' 

 (we spell the name as does he and not " LueUing " as do many in writing of him) that in March, 1847, 

 Henderson Lewelling planted an assortment of apples, pears, peaches, plums and cherries and loaded 

 them into two wagons and started to Oregon. This traveling nursery was on the road from March to 

 November and one can imagine the labor of watering and caring for the trees in this trip across mountains 

 and plains. Henderson Lewelling formed a partnership with William Meek under the firm name of 

 Meek & Lewelling, Milwaukee, Oregon. Seth joined his brother in the fall of 1850 bringing with him 

 from the East a considerable quantity of fruit seed. For the next few years their nursery operations were 

 on a large scale, over 100,000 grafts being planted in 1853. Prom time to time they made new importa- 

 tions of plants and fruit seeds from the East. Seth says that his brother quit the business and moved to 

 California in 1853 and we hear no more of him until his death in 1878. In 1857, the partnership between 

 Meek and Seth Lewelling was dissolved leaving the latter the owner of the Milwaukee nurseries. It was 

 in i860 that Seth Lewelling raised his first seedling cherry, the Republican, called by him Black 

 Republican, which was sold to George Walling of Oswego and Mr. Hanson of East Portland, the proceeds 

 bringing Lewelling $500. Mr. Lewelling counts the Republican and Bing cherries and the Golden Prune 

 as his most notable contributions to pomology. 



The LeweUings are types of fruit-breeders who have done noble work for pomology in the settlement 

 of all our states — men of indominable courage and will who have bred and grown fruits throughout their 

 lives in spite of every adversity. Few other men labored longer and more devotedly to improve the 

 cherry than Seth Lewelling. 



1 Oregon St. Bd. Hort. An. Rpt. 2:242. 1893. 



