by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Inspired by the recent research visit by a class from Occidental College to the Museum to see what our collection had regarding their look into greater, this is the second post looking at some of the early history of walnut growing in greater Los Angeles, following one that covered the 1850s. Notably, there were almost no mentions of the nut in Angel City newspapers during the first half of the 1860s, likely because of the dire economic conditions of that period, including a severe flood in the winter of 1861-1862, followed by two years of devastating drought, not to mention outbreaks of smallpox, hordes of locusts and other issues.
The Los Angeles Star of 15 February 1862, just after “Noah’s flood” subsided, cited a letter written to the periodical, American Farmer, in which it was claimed that “the walnut tree is hostile and noxious to every other fruit tree in its neighborhood” and added that “an oak tree beside a walnut tree dries up.” Otherwise, during this Civil War period, there was media silence about the nut and its prospects in our region.
Once the war ended, rainfall returned in satisfactory quantity and immigration to the area, including from the devastated South, was such that greater Los Angeles entered into its first boom period, lasting through the latter Sixties and the first half of the subsequent decade, we see a significant amount of material on walnuts as part of a surge in agriculture. This was obvious because the floods and droughts wreaked havoc on a region already ravaged by the end of the Gold Rush and depressed economic conditions in the late Fifties, with the cattle industry, long the area’s financial backbone, severely curtailed.
The Wilmington Journal of April Fool’s Day 1865 provided some statistics on imports and exports through the rudimentary port of that community, named for the birthplace of its founding figure, Phineas Banning, the so-called “Port Admiral.” The account noted that, from December 1864 to March 1865, more than 60,000 gallons of wine, above 2.2 million pounds of wheat, north of 270,000 pounds of barley and 3,600 dry cattle hides were shipped from the wharf, while a modest 10 sacks of walnuts departed.
Not quite a year later, the paper, in its 3 February 1866 edition, provided export statistics for the period of May 1863 through the end of 1865, including almost 635,000 gallons of wine, 482,000 pounds of wool, almost 220,000 pounds of potatoes, just above 120,000 pounds of onions, not quite 57,000 hides, 34,000 or so pounds of tallow from cattle fat, and 568 sacks of walnuts. What this shows is that the nut was hardly among the most prominent of agricultural products (notably 1,720 gallons of petroleum from the oil field near modern Santa Clarita, which was inaugurated in 1865, were also shipped), but there was obviously some market in San Francisco and other places.
The 8 December 1865 issue of the Los Angeles News published an anonymous letter under the heading of “Los Angeles as an Agricultural County,” in which the unknown correspondent declared, “I think I may safely affirm that Los Angeles possesses agricultural resources superior to any county in the State.” Field crops of cereals and corn were cited and areas like Cienega (west of Los Angeles), El Monte and Los Nietos (this south of El Monte along the San Gabriel River, then what is now the Río Hondo) were highlighted as being as fertile as the Mississippi River Valley or the Valley of the Nile in Egypt.
The writer added that “stock raising has heretofore been a great drawback to agriculture in this county, but the decline in the price of cattle for the last few years,” no mention being made of the flood and droughts and the financial ruin that followed, “has induced many of the landowners to dispose of their lands in small bodies to cultivators of the soil.” This, in turn, “has added greatly to the revenues and population of the county.” The correspondent presciently observed that,
The emigration of industrious farmers, with their families, from the Atlantic States will be great for years to come, and if land owners will be actuated by a spirit of liberality and accommodation [or, in so many cases, economic desperation, especially among Spanish-speaking Californios on ranches who were less apt to farm and were ruined when cattle died off and prices plummeted for those remaining], the very best results to the county will follow their action.
Some 40 migrants came to the area in the previous couple of months—the war ended some eight months earlier—and conditions were such that “we have the elements here to make this a populous and wealthy community” and “all that is wanted are cultivators of the soil.” Exhorting “let us therefore give every encouragement to agriculture,” the scribe assured readers that “Los Angeles, already as refined and intellectual as any, will eventually become of the most populous and wealth counties in the State.”
With our region’s incomparable climate and remarkably fertile soil, it was asserted that “oranges, lemons, olives, citrons, pomegranates, English walnuts, and all tropical productions grow here in abundance.” Given these optimal conditions, “what more could any rational being desire?” The piece concluded with the remark that no exaggeration was employed in the letter, as was well-known by anyone familiar with greater Los Angeles, so “it only requires that our resources be made known to induce a larger emigration to our section” because it was widely understood that the area was the best for grape-growing and wine-making (though places like Napa and Sonoma were already in the ascendant.)
The Journal of 14 July published extracts from a new textbook, Clarke’s New School Geography, published by Hubert Howe Bancroft, later the compiler of a massive history of California and who secured oral histories with many prominent figures, like F.P.F. Temple, who related their memories of pre-American times in the Golden State. It commented that the region’s manifold benefits, like those noted above, “of the southern part [below the mountains to the north] of Los Angeles County have made it the garden spot of California.” Among its cited exports, beyond oranges, lemons and figs, were walnuts.
The 11 August issue of the port paper printed another anonymous piece of correspondence, this one calling for more emigration to greater Los Angeles, in which a young man named Thomas was entreated to go east and the writer implored,
May thy journey be safe and prosperous , and thy return be speedy, bringing with thee those who were left behind, to add to the industry, [and] prosperity of Southern California; there is room and a welcome for all where the peach, apple, pear, grape, orange, lemon, olive, and walnut, flourish on the soil of our sunny south.
In its edition of 8 September, the Journal published a lengthy letter from 2 February 1864, in answer to one received late the prior year, from Leonard J. Rose, the German-born proprietor of Sunny Slope, a ranch in the San Gabriel Valley that was famed for its vineyards and orchards. In it, Rose stated that he came to the region for his health, which is what drew untold numbers of migrants to our area. He observed that “a person having a love for fancy farming, for fruits and flowers and (I think) a climate unequalled for pleasantness and beauty, will like it here.”
Rose continued, however, that the north was a better place for settlement as “there is more activity and money” there than in our region. He allowed that “Los Angeles has quite a trade which is every day increasing” citing a mining boom in the eastern part of California, including along the desolate stretches next to the Colorado River. He demonstrated some pride in his three years at Sunny Slope and its 30,000 grapevines, about a third of which yielded for the first time in 1863 and sale of the juice put $700 in his coffers, though the current crop was expected to fetch nearly three times more and expectation was up to $6,000 at peak production when the vines were fully matured, even as that amount was needed for the material needed.
Rose went on to claim his vineyard was already equal with that of any other in the region, with the rest considered poor in wine quality because they were in flat regions (such as those of Rowland and Workman at La Puente) as opposed to higher elevations and slopes like his. While proclaiming that vines and wines were the best way to make good money with the least output of labor, he also discussed orchards, although “we had no fruit to sell last year,” perhaps because of the first year of drought. He mentioned much in the way of fruit, from deciduous varieties to berries and 44 varieties of grapes, adding,
All these things we will have in abundance this year, and to sell, and probably some oranges, olives, English walnuts; and almonds. I have 3,000 trees, a large proportion of which are oranges, lemons, English walnuts, almonds and olives—these being very profitable, as they cannot raise them north of this, and we, in consequence, have a monopoly in them.
Rose cautioned, however, that “it requires patience and money to make a place here” and that “it is a pretty hard struggle with me, the hardest of my life,” with the prime reason being “its costing more than I anticipated, and [my] being disappointed in money matters.” In fact, 35 years later, Rose committed suicide, his death taking place on 17 May 1899, 23 years to the day after William Workman took his life because of mounting financial problems.
After referring to that first of two drought years, with only rainfall occurring in nine months, but adding that his vineyards and orchards were not as affected as those who raised cattle, Rose expressed contentment, even as he was in debt about a year’s income and then admitted occasional despondency. During those bleaker moments, he thought of selling for what he put into Sunny Slope, but then realized that no one generally got back what they invested, “so [I] keep digging on, and think all will be well, too.”
Rose concluded that he could not see himself returning east (he’d previously lived in Illinois) but refrained from encouraging migration by those already doing well where they resided. He observed that “society is not so good here” as where the recipient of his missive resided, while remarking “there is much excitement here,” likely because of the mining fever, “and all are awake to making a fortune in the shortest possible time.” Due either to “the atmosphere, or on account of the extraordinary healthfulness,” the writer offered “I believe it is contagious, and makes less sociability and friendship,” while “in the race of fortune . . . many get broke.”
A remarkable and lengthy biography, almost certainly by son-in-law Henry D. Barrows, of the late William Wolfskill, who died a little more than two weeks prior, appeared in the Journal of 20 October. When it came to his March 1838 purchase of a large tract along what became San Pedro Street, it was commented that,
From 1841 he devoted himself mostly to improving and enlarging his vineyard and orchard, on which he lived. The latter contains about 2,000 orange and lemon trees, in bearing, together with a large variety of other miscellaneous fruit trees—including the pear, apple, peach, olive, fig, English walnut, almond, etc., in the culture of which he took pride to the last.
The News of 20 November published a letter from a “Citizen of Los Angeles” who proclaimed that “it must be confessed that Los Angeles in the garden spot of America,” while mentioning that “many causes have conspired to keep Los Angeles back, and [most] of all, the difficulty of obtaining title to land.” This was due to the land claims process mandated by Congress in 1851, leading to commission and court hearings, as well as expensive surveys, which led to adjudication periods averaging some seventeen years.
“Citizen” specified El Monte as a place in which, if residents, some of whom squatted on land belonging to such ranchers as William Workman, F.P.F. Temple, Juan Matias Sánchez and others, could get title to their lands, “it would now be a thriving district,” including “Lick Skillet,” an area along the San Gabriel River (Río Hondo) that was called Lexington. If, however, these land issues could be solved, it was averred,
Los Angeles has the finest climate in the world, and so happily situated in regard to soil and climate, that a farmer can have in his enclosure of forty or fifty acres, all the products of the Tropical and Temperate Zones, and have with them health. From the product of his own hands he can make himself rich . . . The advantages that Los Angeles county offers will not lie unnoticed by shrewd and unobserving people; there is a market for all our peculiar products, and our citizens must give up the idea of competing with the North [of California] in the raising of grain, and devote themselves to the culture of the vine, olive, walnut, orange, lemon and other crops that will bear transportation, and thus take advantage of the gifts that nature has laid at our feet.
The News of 21 September published a chart provided by Los Angeles County Assessor John Quincy Adams Stanley showing how much acreage was devoted to certain crops and the amount of produce from them. This included 650 acres and 13,000 bushels of wheat; 5,000 and 150,000, respectively, of barley; 4,500 and 180,000 of corn; 200 acres and 400 tons of hay; 50 and 150 of alfalfa and 200 and 2,500 pounds of cotton.
Wool yields were north of 400,000 pounds, while the amounts of eggs, butter and cheese from dairies were also provided. There were around 3 million grapevines producing not far under 9,000 tons of fruit and rendered into 600,000 gallons of wine and 70,000 of brandy. The cattle inventory was, following the floods and drought, down to not quite 13,500, though there were 135,000 sheep as those animals dramatically grew in number.
As for fruit trees, totals amounted to almost 7,000 apples; nearly 9,000 peaches; some 6,200 peaches, about 8,800 oranges, while the number of walnut trees was pegged at 3,508. The 18 December issue of the News, under the heading of “Agricultural Industry,” referred to problems grain farmers had in selling their produce because of yields not being large enough for shippers, as well as the lack of machinery to save labor costs.
This led the paper to assert that raising cereal crops was not what local farmers should have focused on so much as “the fruits that are peculiar to our semi-tropical climate, such as grapes, oranges, lemons, limes, olives and walnuts, all of which produce fruit in from three to eight years, and are little or no expense to the farmer after they are transplanted.”
It was added that “walnut trees eight years old will produce two or three times the profit to the husbandman, per acre, that corn or wheat will, with less than one-third the expense, the tree becoming more productive every year, and the fruit can be shipped to any market with very little risk or waste.”
Three months later, the Journal briefly observed that,
There are a good many walnut trees in the vineyards of Los Angeles, and the crop is beginning to be an important one. It is said that the cultivation of the walnut is very profitable.
With this, we’ll return with the next part of this post carrying us into the latter years of the 1860s and as the first boom in greater Los Angeles ensued, so join us then.