Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/499



commands the highest price at the market, and can be shipped in good condition as far as New York city.

Mr. Lambert was born in Indiana, December i, 1825, and moved to Iowa in 1847, working on a farm, and later forming a partnership in operating a portable saw mill. In the spring of 1850 he and a man named David Watkins prepared an outfit and started for the California Eldorado, but when the party which had joined the two hardy emigrants reached the point where the roads fork, one going to Oregon and the other to California, Lambert and one member of the party decided on Oregon and they wintered near Salem. In the spring of '51, Mr. Lam- bert went to Yreka, California, and worked in the mines long enough to discover he was not cut out for that sort of occupation, and he returned to the Willamette valley and went into the logging business, being employed by Aleek & Luelling, of Milwaukie. He soon gave this up and joined a surveying party which ran the meridan line from Portland to Puget Sound. When this was completed, the same party ran the first standard parallel south and then townshipped a few tiers, which took in Salem.

Mr. Lambert was introduced to the pursuit of horticulture in an odd sort of way. He had during the winter and spring of 1853 earned a considerable sum of money by leasing and operating the Meek & Luelling mill, and had about decided to return to Salem. But his employers were financially embarassed and could not pay him, but offered him work on their nursery until they could meet the obligation. He worked for the firm until 1854, and after residing on a 320- acre donation claim in Powell's valley he and his father-in-law, Henry Miller, of Milwaukie, bought Mr. Meek^s interest in the orchards for $25,000.

After various ups and downs the farm was paid for, and some years later Lambert bought out the other interests and became the exclusive proprietor of the once famous orchard and the historical spot where the first cultivated fruit west of the Rocky mountains was produced.

The cherry trees which formed that section of the nursery were brought across the plains in an ox wagon packed in boxes and growing in their native soil.

Mr. Lambert lived to be eighty-four years of age and passed away, full of honors, as of years, the benefactor of mankind, and carrying with him into the great future the praises and prayers of all who knew him.

Not far from Mr. Lambert's nursery, in an equally old and successful nursery of Henderson Luelling another very valuable cherry was produced some years pre- ceding the Lambert. As experience with it proves its great value — specially val- uable as a shipper to long distances — the fruit of necessity must have a name, and Mr. Luelling not caring for the honor himself, called it the "Bing" in honor of Bing, a chinaman who had for a quarter of a century most faithfully labored in the nursery and taken care of his employer's interests — many other fruits have been produced in this vicinity that cannot be noticed here. This shows the his- torical interest in fruit culture at this point, where the great fruit interest of the Pacific coast started sixty-two years ago. ^ '

SCHOOL TEACHING AND APPLE GROWING.

The great gold mine success in producing the best apples in the world in the vicinity of Portland, Oregon, has not failed to catch the dollars as well as the attention of many classes of people. Real estate "boomers" and speculators were among the first to rush into the business. Good fruit lands were not only grabbed up and sold out at speculative prices in small tracts ; but also lands that were worthless for fruit have been worked ofif on the unwary and inexperienced at prices one hundred times their value for any purpose. Other land dealers, more honest and having confidence in their lands have divided them into ten acre tracts and sold them out at prices that would cover the cost and profit on the land, and all the expenses of setting to trees, cultivating and caring for them for five years, and then delivering the orchard in its first bearing to the purchaser. This form