History of Peaches in California

Abstract

Peaches were first brought to California by Spanish missionaries during the 18th century. When the explorer George Vancouver visited California in 1792, he found peaches growing at Missions Dolores and Santa Clara. The first American settlers arriving in California found peach trees. John Marsh, of Mt. Diablo mentions such trees in a letter to Lewis Cass.

Peaches were also planted by the Russians in California. Letters by Khlebnikoff tell of peach trees brought by them by ship from San Francisco, planted near Ft. Ross and then bore fruit in 1820.

According to Wickson (1914) a George Yount planted peaches as early as 1841. T.K. Stewart planted peach seed in Sacramento in 1850. George G. Briggs began planting peaches near Marysville in 1852.

General John Bidwell started a nursery which included peaches in 1851. In that same year, Seth Lewelling brought what were probably the first named peach varieties into California from Oregon. Bernard S. Fox was one of several nurserymen near San Jose who began importing named peach varieties in 1852. By 1860 he had 89 varieties; Col. J.L.L.F. Warren started a nursery in 1849, and published probably the first catalog in California, in which he listed 20 peach varieties, including Early Crawford, Large Blood, and Old Mixton. In 1856, a group of ten nurserymen had more than 300,000 peach trees. And by 1857, there were already about one million peach trees growing in California orchards.

Commercial drying of peaches became a factor after 1870. In 1886, about 4,250,000 lbs. of peaches were dried in the state. By 1890 the figure was 12,250,000 lbs., and 50,000,000 lbs. by 1910.

Commercial peach canning in California began late in the 19th century. Some 700,000 cases were packed in 1895. At first, it was mostly a freestone deal. With the introduction of varieties like Phillips, the clings came into the picture, and by 1913, they predominated, with a pack of 2,000,000 cases.

Much effort has been made in California to develop new varieties of peaches to meet consumer demands and to overcome the prolonged dormancy problem. The work of Luther Burbank is well known. Peach variety testing began very early at the University of California, where a test orchard was established in 1874, and contained 89 varieties in 1875.