Banquet Piece, Pieter Claez

Friday, July 1, 2022

Where did John Rock get his trees for his experimental orchards?


From the
Museum of Local History
scanned by California Revealed
 

No Guessing Required! You can look it up!

This is one of many orchard records in the various archives around town. This is the only one scanned in so far - from the Museum of Local History. Thank you! It is possibly the first orchard record.

A quick look at the sources of the various fruits/nuts planted around 1887:

Many came from the nurseries of John Rock and R.D. Fox in the Santa Clara Valley.

Ellwanger & Barry was an old nursery in New York. According to George C. Roeding, John Rock worked there. Others came from his future Biggs fruit orchard partner A.T. Hatch.  Some came from the University. Some came from local orchards - Beard, Shinn, and maybe Curtner. Felix Gillet was a competitive nurseryman in the Sierra. The Quito orchard was in the Santa Clara Valley and is now a neighborhood. From Burbank, two old varieties of apples. The other names need some research to determine what the abbreviations mean. 

Imported from the East: New York, New Jersey, Delaware, 
Imported from Europe: Tosette? Joselyn? Rivers? Many are marked Imp. which I'm beginning to suspect that Imp. means imported and will confirm at a later date.