Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/37

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First Fruits of the Land.
31

was named after a faithful old Chinaman. He also originated the Golden prune in 1876. The Silver prune was a misnomer of Coe's Golden Drop, perpetrated by a nurseryman about 1875. The Lambert cherry was grown by J. H. Lambert and presented by him to the Oregon State Horticultural Society at the annual meeting of 1896. The Bremen prune, the Imperial Precose, the Ickwort plum, Reine-Claude, Vert, and the favorite French table plum, the Merabel, were in my importations from Germany in 1872. The Bullock prunes were seedlings of the seventies grown by Mr. Bullock near Oswego. A. R. Shipley, some time in the sixties, imported from the Eastern States forty-five varieties of grapes, American and European varieties. For some years he grew quite a vineyard, was an enthusiast in grape culture—a business man retired to the country for love of horticulture. A close observer and a good cultivator, he did valuable work for the grape industry, and was the acknowledged authority on the subject. He discarded all European varieties, and advised the cultivation of only the American varieties for the Willamette Valley. In answer to my request to name the three best varieties for the market, he said, "If I were setting out three hundred grapes to-day, I would first set one hundred Concords, then another one hundred Concords, then another one hundred Concords," adding, "that is, to make money."

In early days we had agricultural literature. The first paper was the Oregon Farmer, August, 1858, published at Portland by W. B. Taylor & Co, Albert G. Walling, editor. A file of that paper in the rooms of the Oregon Historical Society reads well today. It was published from 1858 to 1863. Then came the Oregon Agriculturist, Salem, 1870 to 1872, by A. L. Stinson. E. M. Waite published a paper for a time in Salem. The North Pacific Rural Spirit, W. W. Baker, publisher and editor, Portland, started in 1867, is