June 13, 2007

Nevada's Online State News Journal

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[From The History of Nevada, edited by Sam P. Davis, vol. I (1913), pp. 647-656]

Nevada History:

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CHAPTER XXVIII.

HORTICULTURE.

BY P. BEVERIDGE KENNEDY.

We can hardly state that Nevada has had a large share in the raising of horticultural products on a commercial scale up to the present time. As a consumer, however, her nearest neighbor on the west has benefited very materially from the large quantities of fruits, and particularly small fruits, shipped in and well paid for by Nevada's generous purchasers and good livers.

That she has not reached the limit of her possibilities for fruit-growing is very certain, and much progress is being made along horticultural lines. The early settlers with the gold fever excitement could not be expected to have the temperament necessary for the careful planting, pruning and cultivating of trees. Then again they found the native grass growing abundantly everywhere and with it made money easily, so why risk the unknown and untried. But as in all aggregations of people there were a few with the experimental or investigational type of mind and it is to these that we must look for the beginnings of things in a horticultural way.

In the Truckee Valley the names of Walts, Snare, Plumb, Ferris, Sullivan, Gault, Ross, Peckham, McCarran, Mullins, Ferris, Wheeler and Lonkey, have been associated with the growing of fruit to a greater or less extent for many years. In no case, however, does the amount of land devoted to fruit exceed ten acres, and in every instance the crop is raised as a subsidiary product of the farm. As would naturally be expected the orchards located on the foothills have more success in escaping the numerous and severe spring frosts of the region. In the foothill country a full crop may be relied upon without "smudging" about once in three years while in the lower parts of the valley a good crop is secured about one out of every five years. Although smudging by means of old manure piles, wood and rubbish had been carried on for a number of

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years with more or less success, it was not until orchard-heating experiments were carried on by the Nevada Agricultural Experiment Station in 1910 that much attention was given to the possibility of saving the crop of fruit annually by means of oil-heaters. The Walt Bros. took up the matter in a practical way and demonstrated that they could save their crop and still leave a fair profit after all expenses of heating the orchard had been deducted. The market has been a local one and little or no grading or wrapping or packing of apples has been done. Buyers have not been in the habit of coming to Nevada because of the uncertainty of the crop and the small acreage. In seasons of abundant crops the local market has been glutted from lack of storage facilities and it has been found necessary to turn everything into cider and vinegar or feed to stock. In a few favored localities in regard to soil, elevation and exposure strawberries have done well, but the high price for the labor of picking has prevented the raising of this crop commercially. Ten acres grown at one time by Mr. Mullins in the Wedekind District, is the largest area devoted to this crop. Raspberries are grown to a considerable extent and find a ready local market. Usually, however, the patches do not exceed an acre, though it can be relied upon as a sure and profitable crop. Peaches, plums, pears, blackberries and cherries are grown to some extent but not extensively enough to be considered commercially. It is of interest in this connection to mention the status of the nursery business. Some twenty years ago there were two well established nurseries. One was located at what is now one of the principal residence districts of Reno, and occupies the land lying between Sierra and Ralston Streets and Walnut and Maple Streets. The trees on the north side of Maple Street and the coniferous trees in the lots have grown up from the original specimens in the nursery rows. This nursery was owned by a man named Connor who, though, a good gardener, lacked business ability. The other, then known as the Arlington nursery was located on the out-skirts of the city on the south side of what is now the Patrick ranch.

Owing to the great diversity of the climate, ranging from a few degrees of frost toward the southern boundary near the Colorado River to forty degrees below zero in the extreme north and on some of the central desert plains, the State must be divided into more or less distinct horticultural sections. These sections we will designate as: (1) the Sierra Nevada section; (2) the Humboldt River section; (3) the Southern or

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Semi-tropical section. In addition to these there will be found numerous ranches fifty or more miles from the railroad and scattered throughout the mountains in almost every part of the State. Many of these produce most excellent fruit in small quantities for local consumption. Indeed it could not be otherwise as even the apples would have to be of a cast iron variety to withstand the transit over the mountain roads, not to speak of the more perishable fruits like peaches.

The Eastern Sierra Nevada Section.—This section includes the country lying along the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and ranging from Verdi and Reno through the rich fertile Truckee Valley southwards to Pleasant, Washoe, Eagle and Carson Valleys. For convenience, although further inland, we will include the land under the government reclamation project at Fallon and Mason and Smith Valleys further south. The section receives its water supply from the Truckee, Carson and Walker Rivers and from numerous smaller local mountain streams. From that time until recently there were no nurseries in the State. The Reno nursery has several thousand young Carolina poplar trees, but aside from this, all orchard trees, small fruits and ornamental trees and shrubs are brought in from other States. We must here include the interesting career of the old hermit, Laurent Bennyton. He escaped from the French army with his uniform and muskets and landed in Philadelphia. It is also reported that he was an exiled priest. He was a man of considerable education and a member of a wealthy and well-known family, the Bennytons of Paris. Working his way west he landed in Virginia City in the early days. From there he became a man of the hills and a hermit evidently prospecting in the Virginia range of mountains but finally locating in a barren nook with no visible spring, two miles south over the ridge from Vista, the entrance of the Truckee River, through the mountains on its course to Pyramid Lake. Here he remained for forty-two years and produced a horticultural oasis, the like of which is perhaps unique in the world's history. Surrounding this man of solitude and few words, we find evidences of a successful battle with the soil and meagre water facilities of the desert. Living in a hovel, the entrance consisting of a hole to crawl through, a goat for milk, and a few chickens, he has surrounded himself with apple, pear, peach, apricot and almond trees as well as a few grapes. The striking horticultural feature is that the almond trees predominate, there being over a thousand trees, old and

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young, which bear well every year. When we consider that these are the only almond trees anywhere in the Truckee Valley or the northern or central parts of Nevada we must give great credit to the old hermit who has opened our eyes to the possibilities of similar locations. The water from the melting snow was conserved in miniature reservoirs which caused a gradual seepage to the groves of trees. Here we find little wells four feet deep and two feet wide from which he dipped the water into buckets and packed it on his shoulders on ingenious water carriers to each tree, naming it, and talking to it with such remarks as the following: "This is all I can give you today, perhaps I can spare you a little more tomorrow," or "You were very good to me last year, I will give you all I can." His trees undoubtedly received a very small amount of water and the secret of his success is a great object lesson in dry farming methods. The holes for the trees were dug five feet deep and nearly as wide, and in them he placed rotten sagebrush and grass and everything that would tend to hold moisture and give it up to the tree gradually. His surplus crop was taken on his back over a trail sixteen miles long to Virginia City. This long trail he constructed himself with only a pick and shovel. Other evidences of his mania for hard labor are to be seen in the building of a road over two miles long down a canyon to the Truckee River and a fence about four miles long built of sagebrush and rocks cleared from the enclosed territory.

When we consider that all this and much more has been accomplished with the sole labor of a pair of hands we are obliged to marvel at the man's fortitude.

His load to and from the city was often 10o pounds, consisting chiefly of flour on the return journey. He scorned a lift, preferring the independence and the solitude. The bulk of the fruit, however, was dried and this, with almonds and a sort of wine from his grapes, formed his chief sustenance. One morning in the spring of 1912 he was found lying outside the hovel very sick, and was taken to the County Hospital in Reno, Nev., where he died a month later at the age of 87 years.

In his effects were found his old soldier clothes still in good condition, for he is said only to have put them on rare occasions. His old flintlock muskets are in the hands of a neighboring farmer. We must give much credit to this noble and religious character for having demonstrated perhaps unconsciously, one of the best experiments on the conservation of

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moisture and the possibilities of Nevada for the growing of fruits, especially almonds, under apparently almost desert conditions.

The Nevada Agricultural Experiment Station has also played a part in the horticulture of the State. It was organized in 1887 and the first appropriation, fifteen thousand ($15,000) dollars, was received from the Federal Government in April, 1888. For a short time the experiments, chiefly in meteorology, were conducted on the University Campus, but soon a farm was secured near the present State Asylum and an orchard planted. The work consisted merely of growing the trees and identifying the varieties of apples and no records were kept. In 1900 the experiment station farm was removed to its present site adjoining the State Fair Grounds in Reno. The farm was given to the State by Washoe County and the old farm was turned over to the asylum for the growing of vegetables and fruit for the inmates.

From 1900 to 1903 no horticultural work was carried on. In 1903 the writer planted out an orchard and many trees and shrubs, the record of which can be found in the Reports and Bulletins, published by the station. Leaving the Truckee Valley and passing along the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains to the south we pass through Pleasant Valley to Washoe Valley which has upheld the reputation of Nevada as a possible fruit growing State at all the expositions and fairs for many years. The names of Lewers, Winters, Howard, Cliff and Neidenriech are associated in this valley with the raising of fruit but we have only space enough to consider the ranch of Mr. Lewers. Mr. Ross Lewers, a well educated Irishman, after coming round Cape Horn, landed on the Coast in 1850, and engaged in mining and lumbering in California. In 1860 he came down with his sawmill to Franktown from Honey Lake Valley. When sufficient high land was cleared he planted fruit trees in 1864. These trees are still bearing well. His first order of 300 trees given to a California nurseryman, landed in Virginia by mistake. No owner being found they were sold for the freight and planted in Six Mile Canyon, near Dayton.

The next order was given to the well known firm of Thomas Meehan, at Philadelphia and Paul's nursery at Washington, D. C. He also started a small nursery and raised his own trees from seedlings. After establishing a picturesque home overlooking Lake Washoe and surrounded by pine trees, he returned to Ireland for a companion. His wife was an

652      THE HISTORY OF NEVADA

ardent lover of flowers and a keen observer and reader and surrounded herself with the largest assortment of perennial flowering plants grown in the State.

There are about forty acres of orchard containing some seventy varieties of apples, a dozen of pears, a few peach, plum, cherry trees and strawberries, raspberries and loganberries among the small fruits. A unique feature of the place is a very large English walnut tree which bears some fruit every year and sometimes a fair crop. There are also two fine white oaks now twenty years old with trunks nine inches in diameter. All the fruit raised is of excellent quality and superb in coloring. The soil is a rich black granitic loam abundantly supplied with potash. His market for many years was at Virginia City and Washoe, the highest price received being $2.50 to $3.00 per box of apples. After the Virginia and Truckee Railroad was built Mr. Lewers shipped to California and was able to compete successfully on the San Francisco market often receiving 25 cents a box more for his apples than the California product. It is the only orchard in the State known to the writer where fruit has been scientifically stored and packed before being placed on the market. Still further south in Eagle Valley in the vicinity of Carson and in the Carson Valley, near Gardnerville and Genoa, there are a number of old orchards which raise considerable fruit for home consumption or the local market. Mr. Dangberg at Minden has also set out a considerable acreage to young trees. Fifty miles inland from the Truckee Valley in the Carson Sink Valley where the Truckee Carson Government reclamation Project has been established there are a number of old ranches nearly all of which have more or less land planted out to fruit. The names of Thommey, Brown, Harriman, Douglas, Allen, Ferguson, are associated with small orchards. Large numbers of young trees have been planted out by the new settlers as the possibilities of profitable fruit growing are excellent. Still further south, in Mason and Smith Valleys, we find a large number of ranches growing considerable fruit.

The Humboldt River Section.—This includes the ranches watered by the Humboldt River and her tributaries and extends for hundreds of miles from the Ruby or East Humboldt Mountains to Lovelock.

In Star Valley we have the names of Cazier, Smiley, Riddell, Hardy, Wells, Lane and Gray, and in Clover Valley, those of Conway, Weeks, Johnson, Wiseman, Schoer and Gibbs. None of these orchards exceed

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four acres in extent. Some bear every year, but the majority are so situated that the spring frosts have to be contended with. At Toynes in Mound Valley we find apples, pears, peaches, plums and small fruits, in abundance for home use.

The Southern and Semi-tropical Section.—In this section we include the southern part of the State as represented in Nye, Lincoln and Clark Counties. The truly semi-tropical part of the section is situated in Clark County, which is the southern half of what was once Lincoln County. The chief horticultural districts are in the Muddy or Moapa Valley and the Las Vegas, Pahrump and Pahranagat Valleys.

The lower part of the Moapa Valley at St. Thomas was settled as early as 1851 by Mormons, who came from Utah. Thinking they were still within the Utah boundary they paid their taxes to Utah officials. When the Nevada tax collector discovered them he demanded that they pay three years' back taxes. This they refused to do, burnt their houses, and abandoning their ripening crops, departed for Salt Lake City. In about 1870 a new lot of settlers, both Gentile and Mormon, came into the valley and located at Logan (then called St. Joe), Overton and St. Thomas. To them must be attributed the discovery of the wonderful fertility of the soil of the region for the production of alfalfa, grains, vegetables and fruits. Associated with its early history are the names of Belding and Seabright, Bonelli, Syphus Mills, Church, Thomas, Jones, Cobb, Gibson, Gans, Willow, Lund and Judd and Major Holt. For a long time the nearest railroad was over a hundred miles away, so that almost everything grown was disposed of in the valley or to the miners in southern Nevada and northern Arizona, Bonelli, the keeper of the ferry across the Colorado River, then at Rioville, was an all-round naturalist. Cotton was grown quite extensively in the early days and made into clothing. Apples, pears, peaches, plums, prunes, cherries, apricots, almonds, nectarines, pomegranates, figs, grapes and peanuts. Sugar cane was found to grow exceedingly well, but there was then no market for perishable crops. All kinds of vegetables grew profusely and in many cases were harvested even before the same crops were sown in the north. In 1905 the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, extended a branch of the Oregon Short Line so as to pass through southern Nevada en route to Los Angeles. The prospect of a good market for their crops brought new hope to the old settlers and made the valley accessible to seekers

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after land who soon began to come in considerable numbers. Some of the old settlers seeing a good chance to sell out at a favorable price gave up the hard struggle and retired to spend the few remaining years of their life under easier and more sociable surroundings.

On March 2, 1905, the Twenty-second Session of the Nevada State Legislature approved an act to select a site for the Establishment of a Branch Experiment Farm in the Tropical Regions of Nevada. The Commissioners appointed by the Governor to select the site were Col. H. B. Maxson, P. S. Triplett and Professor Gordon H. True. They selected eight acres of land at Logan in the Moapa Valley. A report covering the details of the Commission's work was published by the State in 1906. Experiments on the adaptability and the best methods of growing grain, hay, vegetable and fruit crops and with live stock have been carried on. The history of this work of the Experiment Farm is to be found in the Reports of the Board of Control for 1907-1908, and 1909-1910. These are also published by the State. At the Stewart ranch adjacent to the town of Las Vegas, in the Las Vegas Valley, we have one of the oldest ranches in the State of Nevada. There are old trees and vines, planted about fifty-five years ago, that are still bearing profusely. A single apricot tree sometimes bears a ton of fruit. The ranch is watered by means of an immense spring of tepid water coming directly out of the desert. Within the last few years artesian wells have been established and new land is being put under cultivation. In the Pahranagat Valley in Lincoln County, and the Pahrump Valley in Nye County, fruit has been grown on isolated ranches for many years, but little is known of the possibilities of the region.

A few ranches near the foothills of the Charleston Mountains produce considerable fruit and vegetables, particularly the old White ranch at Manso, and the MacFarland ranch at Indian Springs.

Horticultural Legislation.—An act to encourage the growth of trees was approved March 7, 1873. Ten dollars a year for twenty years, was paid by the county for each acre or half mile of forest or ornamental trees planted a rod apart and kept alive in growing condition, willows and cottonwoods planted above ditches and canals were not included. The planting was to in no manner increase the taxable value of the land, This law is no longer in force.

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Horticulture is also included in the work of the State Agricultural Society by an act approved in the same year.

On March 13, 1903, an act was approved to protect and promote the horticultural interests of the State and to destroy insect pests in orchards and elsewhere. Whenever a petition is presented to the Board of County Commissioners of any county, and signed by twenty or more persons who are resident freeholders and possessors of an orchard or both stating that certain or all orchards or nurseries or trees of any variety, are infested with scale insect of any kind injurious to fruit, fruit trees or vines, or are infested with codling moth or other insects or pests that are destructive to trees or vines, and praying that a Commissioner be appointed by them whose duty it shall be to supervise the destruction of such insects or trees as herein provided, the Board of County Commissioners shall within twenty days after the presentation of such a petition, select and appoint a Commissioner for the county, who shall be known as the County Horticultural Commissioner, the said Commissioner shall serve for a period of two years from and after the date of his appointment and qualification or unless he shall be sooner removed by order of said Board of County Commissioners. There are eight sections to the act providing the duties, districts and compensation of the Commissioners. An act concerning the shipping of nursery stock into the State was approved March 25, 1909.

Section 1. All nursery stock shipped from other States to points within the State of Nevada, whether fruit trees, ornamental trees, shrubs, vines, cuttings, or other nursery stock of any description whatever shall bear on the outside of each car,'crate, bale, bundle or package a label giving the names of the consignor and consignee, together with a copy of an inspection certificate of recent date. Such certificate of inspection must certify 'that said stock has been inspected and found free from insect pests or plant diseases of any kind. It must bear the signature of the State Entomologist or Plant Pathologist or other duly qualified person in authority in the State in which said nursery stock was grown.

Section 2. No corporation, company, or individual engaged in the transportation of freight or express shall make delivery of any nursery stock lacking such official certificate of inspection to the consignee or his agent within the State of Nevada; and any agent of any such corporation, company or individual who does make delivery of any uncertified nursery

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stock shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof shall be fined in any sum not less than twenty-five ($25) dollars nor more than one hundred ($100) dollars, or by imprisonment in the County Jail for not less than five nor more than thirty days, or by both such fine and imprisonment at the discretion of the Court, and any fines collected under the provisions of this act shall be paid to the State Treasurer.