Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1881 — Apples and Peaches. [ARTICLE]

Apples and Peaches.

Mr. John Piper says the first box o apples of Pacific coast production which reached Ban Francisco came in | the same year from the ranche of . Lewis Allen and Mr. Meade, in the , vicinity of Portland, Oregon, the owners of the same having crossed the Sains in 1846 and having brought nit trees with them. Mr. JPiper purchased the first lot from the agent, Mr. ■ King, for $2 SO per pound and retailed , the same from $1 to $4 and even $5 apiece. The next steamer, the Columbia, brought another box, for which Mr. Piper offered 'the same price, which was declined. He finally secured the lot for $1 12)4 each, and sold them again to two lads named Keating (now In the gunsmith business in Ban Francisco) for|l 37)4 apiece, who in turn peddled them out for $3 to $5 apiece. During the winter of 1853-4 Mr. Piper and Mr. Andrews, who were then engaged in the hardware business on Davis street, ordered four or five thousand pounds of apples shipped from New York city to Ban Francisco, by steamer, paying fifty cents a pounc for freight. The apples were packed in sawdust closed in tin cans. Says our informant*. “The apples when first opened had a delicious flavor, but turned black in half an hour afterward from the effect of the heat during the twenty days’ voyage.” The first lot of peaches which reached San Francisco, 1854, came from Mr. Hill’s ranch, at Napa, and sold as high as $2 50 per dozen, retail. Cherries of Oregon growth were introduced the same {rear. Mr. Piper purchased the first ot for $2 60 per pound. Putting them in a clothesbasket, he retailed them on the street at 25 cents apiece, and afterwards sold them in his store for $5 per pound. Strawberries arrived from Alameda in 1854-5, and cost $4 a pound wholesale, ami heaped up in French soup bowls, holding half a Ku nd each, were retailed at $5 per wl. Pears, which came into the i market about the same time, retailed at a high figure. Mr. Piper remembered getting |ll for a single pear. The first lot of grapes that came from Los Angeles sold at wholesale as high as twenty-five cents per pound, i Oranges, which were first brought by steamer from San Juan, the terminus of the route of the Nicaragua steamers in 1854, brought S9O per thousand ' wholesale. Limes brought from Aca- ! pulco were worth S6O per thousand; ' pineapples, S4O per thousand; bananas, $25 a bunch. Mr. Piper continued in the fruit trade from 1853 to 1858. Among the retail dealers during that period were Marco Medin anc Undertaker Wilson, of this city.—Nevada Enterprise.