Dang, here's a bit of CA horticultural history I didn't know. The Watts Towers survived long enough to become recognized because an actor & horticulturalist named Nicholas King bought the property from Rodia's neighbor (who Rodia sold it to when he got sick of getting hassled over the towers). He then seems to have had enough swing to get LA to call off its dogs.

He later settled around Point Arena to open a nursery and graft apples!

#AgHistory #ArtHistory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_King

Looked up the birthplace of 'Carmel' almond on Google Maps, expecting it to be paved over. To my surprise, it's still farmland!

The original almond orchard is gone, but there are younger orchards around.

#AgHistory #Almond #Horticulture

I've known the 'Hass' story for nearly 2 decades, but just tonight finally read the story of 'Nonpareil'. In both cases, the bonanza parent tree was nearly grafted to something else. It's only because each grower was delayed grafting all of their seedlings that the superior qualities of the seedling had a chance to be discovered.

Both of these chance seedlings' clones have dominated the market in CA and often abroad for many decades.

https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=PRP18870409.2.10.1&srpos=1&e=------188-en--20-PRP-1--txt-txIN-nonpareil+almond-ARTICLE------

#Horticulture #AgHistory

For all that people go wild over marker-assisted breeding, the leading avocado and the leading almond cultivars in CA are both the results of planting out seedlings. They were chance seedling accidents.

#PlantBreeding #AgHistory

Images shared from: Cycling Museum of Minnesota and Texas State Historical Association.

The chainwheels image shared by Cycling Museum of Minnesota reminds me of cattle brands charts I have seen. Both have a unique artistry to them and both serve a functional purpose.

#aghistory #cyclinghistory #cycling #histodons #history #sporthistory