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 nursery 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 seeds and a few grafted trees. A partnership was formed and the firm of Luelling & Meek started the first nursery of 1848. Roots from seeding apples planted at Oregon City and on French 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 young 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 in the Waldo hills and about Salem. Of apples the following varieties were common: Red Astrachan, Red June, Talman's Sweet, Summer Sweet, Gravenstein, White Winter Pearmain, Blue Pearmain, Genet, Gloria Mundi, Baldwin, Rambo, Winesap, Jenett, Seek-no-Further, Tulpahockin, American Pippin, Red Cheek Pippin, Rhode Island Greening, Virginia Greening, Little Romanite, Spitzenberg, Swaar, Waxen, and a spurious Yellow Newtown Pippin, since called Green Newton Pippin—a worthless variety which has since caused much trouble to nurserymen, orchardists and fruitbuyers, and brought by mistake for the genuine—and other varieties not now remembered.
Of pears, the Fall Butter, Pound Pear, Winter Nellis, Seckel, Bartlett, Easter and others. Of cherries. May Duke, Governor Wood, Oxheart, Blackheart, Black Tartarian, Kentish and others. Peaches, the Crawford, Hale's Early, Indian Peach, Golden Cling, and seedlings. Of plums, the Gages, Jefferson, Washington, Columbia, Peach Plum, Reine Claude, and Coe's Late Red were leading varieties. Of prunes there was only one variety, our little German prune, a native of the Rhine, sometimes called the Rhine prune, and from which our Italian is a lineal descendant—a sport from its native country. The grapes were the Catawba and Isabella.
The climate was propitious, and the soil fertile, and there were no insect pests. Trees grew rapidly and they were prolific of such fruit as had never been seen before.
About 1850, a Mr. Ladd started a nursery near Butteville, and in the same year George Settlemier arrived by way of California with a good supply of fruit-tree seed, which he planted on Green Point, and afterwards removed to his present home at Mount Angel, where, as fast as his limited means would allow, a large stock of fruit and ornamental trees were accumulated, making in all the largest variety in the territory. Mr. Settlemier wisely interested his large family of sons in the business by giving them little blocks of ground for side nurseries of their own. J. H. Settlemier of Woodburn, tells with pride how he started at 10 years of age, in three fence corners, and at 13 had 1,000 trees and sold one bill of $60.
Another nursery was started near Salem and the pioneer fruit industry was fairly inaugurated. This year Mr. Luelling went back east and selected from
