Roeding Test Orchard

- Other fruits and nuts

What else was grown here?

This is the map that was used to plant the cherries and the apricots. Perhaps we have 'Hemskirke' apricots in additon to 'Blenheim' apricots.

Someone in the 1990s put this chart together using one of the orchard books. They then used this to plant apricots, peaches, and cherries.

The rows are numbered from north to south and the trees from west to east. Row 1 Tree 1 is the first row and tree that you would have encountered walking from the front of the nursery toward the Western Pacific tracks (todays BART line).



For fruit history prior to 1921, check on The California Fruits and How to Grow Them by E.J. Wickson (1848-1923). E.J. Wickson is allegedly the person who directed Charles Howard Shinn to obtain 600 apples - all the apples known in California in 1895 - so Albert Etter could start his breeding Experiments. Both Albert Etter and Luther Burbank named fruits after Wickson. And there was a Shinn apple variety, presumed to be named after CHS.

Peaches

The 1943 catalog features three luscious looking peaches: 'Fisher', 'Nectar', and the 'Rio Oso Gem'. These three peaches were planted in the Experimental Orchard.


The 'Fisher' peach was discovered in Canada in 1934, not too far from Niagara Falls. The chance mutation (sport) created a peach that ripened a full 3 weeks earlier than the mother tree.

The 'Fisher' peach was planted here in Niles in 1940 and was one of the many fruits in the Roeding Test Orchard in the 1930s on. In July 1939, Howard Fisher visited the nursery with 300 other members of the American Association of Nurserymen.

The 'Rio Oso Gem' was possibly a seedling of J.H. Hale; introduced by William Yerkes, Rio Oso, CA., 1926, according to Trees of Antiquity.

Other Peaches:

Nectar Peach

Many Nectar Peaches were planted in the orchard.


Fisher Peach

The Fisher Peach, a sport found in Ontario, Canada. Plant patent PP00233

Several Fisher peach trees were grown in Row 4.


It is unknown which catalog the Fisher peach first turned up, but this advertisement is from 1941.

About the Fisher peach, the 1961 catalog.

The 1941 catalog has a color photo of Fisher.

Howard Fisher was one of the nurserymen who visited the California Nursery Company in 1939, on a field trip of the American Nurserymen Association from the 1939 World's fair on Treasure Island.

Nectarines

Nectarines are naked peaches.

  • Fireglobe

  • Stanwick

  • Mabel?

  • Guy Phillip?

  • Fisher

Apricots

  • Blenheim - the variety that most commercial orchards planted.

  • Hemskirke

  • Sebastian

  • Routier's Peach Apricot?

  • R.S. Coe from ?

Burbank's fruits

Burbank and George C. Roeding had a short marketing relationship in 1907. Burbank was rumored to be on someone's board for a while, but the catalog with this information is illusive. Burbank died in 1926. George C. Roeding was Burbank's contemporary.

Luther Burbank's Plums are described here.

There was a trio of plums introduced in this 1908-1909 Fancher Creek catalog: Formosa, Gaviota, and Vesuvius. Also in this issue were the the Santa Rosa plum and Plumcot.

In the Roeding Experimental Orchard were these Burbank varieties:

  • Wickson plum (p. 283 Wickson)

  • Burmosa plum (Burbank X Formosa) Was this Burbank's experiment or another person's?

Plums

Cherries

  • Bing

  • Black Tartarian (usually a pollinator, but tasty)

  • English Morello

Apples

  • Gravenstein

  • Lady?

  • McGilleroy seedling Springtime

  • Jonathan

  • White Winter Permain

  • Apple from China?

  • Skinner seedling?

  • Apple Red June? Etter?

Etter's Apples
about one-fourth to one-third of the orchard

Read about the Ettersburg Apple Legacy, Greenmantle Nurserty

The Etter apple names tested in the orchard were the following. If in Bold, they were sold by the California Nursery Company:

  • Alberkay,

  • All Gold,

  • #1 N All Gold,

  • Amber,

  • Arcata,

  • #15 Best,

  • #15 Best Revallarist,

  • #12 Big Pink Wickson,

  • California,

  • Crimson Gold

  • Dawn,

  • Delilah,

  • Diana,

  • Dr Player,

  • #2 Earliest Asiatic,

  • Epochal,

  • Etters Gold,

  • Etters Gold,

  • Eureka,

  • Eureka,

  • Fall Pink Flesh Pearmain,

  • Felicity,

  • #11 Golden Dawn,

  • #11 Golden Dawn,

  • Golden Hyde King,

  • Golden Manx,

  • Humboldt ,

  • Hybrid,

  • Hyde King ,

  • Jonwin,

  • Manette,

  • Manxilon,

  • Marshall,

  • Newton Snow,

  • Northfield Beauty,

  • Ornamental,

  • #1 Pear Shaped Little Crab,

  • #1 Pear Shaped Little Crab,

  • Pink Pearl ,

  • Psyche,

  • Red? Asiatic

  • Red Blossom,

  • #1 Red Flesh Asiatic,

  • #1 Red Flesh Asiatic,

  • Red Flesh Banana

  • Red Flesh Hoover

  • #4 Red Flesh Spitz

  • Red Flesh Spitz #4

  • Red Juicy Golden Crab

  • Red Manx

  • Red Ruby Flesh

  • #5 Red Ruby Flesh

  • Reinette

  • Rivallarist

  • #8 Roe Asiatic

  • St. Francis

  • Wickson (missing on map?) in other rows!

  • #33

  • #34

  • #35

  • #36

  • #37

  • #38

  • and so many more!

Useful References:

  • National Park Service's "Fruitful Legacy"

  • Orchard Management Plan Fort Ross

  • Kym Kemp's THE HORTICULTURAL GENIUS OF HUMBOLDT COUNTY "Through the courtesy of the Agricultural Experimental stations connected with the University of California. Albert F. Etter has now growing in the Ettersburg nurseries over 450 varieties of apples and next season these will be increased by several hundred additional varieties. This collection will embrace not only all the standard varieties in cultivation but many varieties of local fame from all over the United States and also a very large number from foreign countries all over the world." Humboldt Times August 15, 1900