loneerkozi.et1ion; - ScholarsArchive at Oregon State University

THE OCCASIONAL ADDRESS. 41
pose of his land in time to start until it would be quite late, so he concluded to
wait another year and bring the "Traveling Nursery." He planted his nursery
thus: He made two boxes 12 inches deep, and just wide and long enough to
fill the wagon bed, and filled them with a compost consisting principally of
charcoal and earth, into which he planted about 700 trees and shrubs, from 20
inches to 4 feet high, and protected them from the stock by a light though
strong frame fastened to the wagon box. He left the Missouri river the 17th of
May.
On the Platte, Mr. Luellin took charge of the nursery wagon and team to
bring it through in his own way and time, for it was already pronounced by
some of his friends a very hazardous undertaking to draw such a heavy load all
the way over the Rocky mountains; but every discourging proposition, he inva.
riably answered, that so long as he could take it without endangering the safety
of his family, he would stick to it. The last time that any one tried to discourage
him about the nursery wagon was on the North Platte. Rev. Mr. White
suggested that it would be better to leave it, as the cattle were becoming weary
and foot sore, and that owing to the continued weight of that load, it would kill
all his cattle and prevent his getting through; but his answer was such an emphatic
"no" that he was allowed to follow his own course after that without
remonstrance.
The nursery reached The Dalles about the 1st of October, and the trees were
there taken out of the boxes and securely wrapped in cloths to protect them
from frosty nights and the various handlings that they had to undergo in the
in the transit down the Columbia. That load of trees contained health, wealth
and comfort, for the old Pioneers of Oregon. It wa the mother of all our early
nurseries and orchards, and gave Oregon a name and fame that she never would
have had without it. That load of living trees and shrubs brought more wealth
to Oregon than any ship that ever entered the Columbia river. Then, I say,
hail, all hail to the traveling nursery that crossed the plains in 1847.
Excuse me, when I tell you that I brought one bushel of apple, and one-half
bushel of pear seeds, which went far towards supplying this coast with trees,
especially pear trees, for I furnished Luelling with stock and he furnished me
with buds from his traveling nursery, which enabled both of us to furnish cultivated
trees in great numbers at an early day, and certainly that traveling nursery
was a God-send to me and mine.
One good effect of the emigration of 1847, as I have already stated, was to swell
the white population of Oregon to such an extent that there were men enough
to go east of the Cascade mountains and conquor the hostile Indians and bring
the murderers of Dr. Whitman and others to justice, and so overawe all the In-