Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/492

330 for years the sale of bucks has been a source of profit to the owners, aside from the annual sale of the mohair, which averages about 150,000 pounds for Polk county.

Angora husbandry in Oregon now ranks well in importance with the livestock pursuits of the State. Oregon is second, if not first in number of Angora goats and production of mohair in the United States, the annual clip from its flocks of Angoras running in value well toward $50,000, while the value of their yearly increase approximates $400,000. More than half a million dollars of new wealth is added annually to the yield of Oregon farms from Angora goats. Oregon mohair ranks with the best in the eastern markets and commands the highest market prices.

As "Johnny Appleseed" (whose real name was Jonathan Chapman) was the fore-runner and fore-planter of apple trees in the Ohio valley in 1805, so also was in like manner the good missionary of all fruits to the region of Old Oregon in 1847. Johnny "Appleseed," so called by the first settlers in Ohio, came over the Alleghany Mountains through the pass that General Braddoek followed on his ill-fated expedition against the French at old Port Du Quesne (later Pittsburgh) in 1755. But "Appleseed" passed through about fifty years afterwards carrying with him a paekhorse load of apple seed and seedling trees which he planted in the settled places of Central Ohio. And forty-two years after "Appleseed" commenced planting nurseries on Licking river, Ohio, Luelling took up his line of march carying his precious load of grafted apple sprouts twenty-five hundred miles from Salem, Iowa, to Oregon. Thus it is seen by the unselfish labors of these two men, and by two long strides, apple trees were transplanted from Eastern Pennsylvania to the wilds of Western Oregon. "Appleseed" transported his cargo on a paekhorse, while Luelling planted his 700 little trees in boxes twelve inches deep and wide enough to fit snugly in the bed of the wagon; and thus day after day watering the precious young scions he safely landed them after six months of watchful care on the banks of the Willamette river at the place where the town of Milwaukie now stands, and there about half a mile north of the townsite started the first tree nursery in 1847, west of the Rocky Mountains.

Luelling 's trees were not the first fruit trees in Oregon; but they were the first grafted trees, trees that bear improved fruit true to name. The Hudson's Bay Company had fruit at Port Vancouver; but it was all the produce of seeds and pits of stone fruits brought out from England in 1825, and from its variety was at that time considered very fine.

Narcissa Prentiss Whitman, one of the first two white women to cross the plains from "The States" to Oregon arriving at Port Vancouver on September 12, 1836, made the following entry in her diary under that date: "What a delightful place this is; what a contrast to the rough, barren sand plain through which we have so recently passed. Here we find fruit of every description — apples, peaches, grapes, pears, plums and fig trees in abundance; also, cucumbers, melons, beans, peas, beets, cabbage, tomatoes, and every kind of vegetable, too numerous to be mentioned. Every part of the garden is very neatly and taste-