Over 50 years ago in the summer of 1970, a group of friends followed an old stagecoach road into the woods of California’s Gold Country where they were hunting for mining relics but what they came across that day was even more rare, fruit trees that were planted when gold was being mined 170 years ago. Perched at 5,000 feet, the thriving fruit orchards included rare varieties of apples, plums, cherries, pears, and more. It’s incredible to think about the fact these groves have managed to survive without pruning or pesticides ever since the Gold Rush, whereas today, many fruit trees live less than 40 years and receive both.
From what I understand, the original find was an orchard with over 130 different fruit trees, and Bob Cantisano, one of the group who discovered the heirloom treasure said it was kind of theirs for the taking, as there wasn’t anybody within miles close by or tending to the ground, so as a group they decided to go back in the fall to harvest the fruit. As the group discovered more and more of these orchards in the area, Cantisano began to research the origination of the trees. He learned that much of the credit goes to Felix Gillet, a horticulturist initially from France who made several trans-Atlantic voyages before landing in Nevada City in 1859. He eventually decided to start a nursery. There are decades of plant catalogs that make it clear the Gillet imported over a thousand different varieties of fruits, nuts, and ornamental plants from over 30 different countries, and it’s worth mentioning, many of Gillet’s imports went on to become the precursors of wildly successful crop varieties, including his Napoleon bigarreau cherry, the parents of the Bing cherry, and his Kishmish grapes that led to the development of the Thompson seedless grape.
I always find it interesting that much more wealth was created by those who were smart enough to “supply the miners” rather than choosing to be one. In other words, fortunes were made by those selling maps, picks, shovels, and in this case fruits and vegetables to those in search of gold. Take George C. Briggs, who arrived in California from Ohio in 1849 and decided instead of mining gold, he would grow fruit and sell it to the miners. Historical data shows his 1851 watermelon crop alone made him wildly rich. But interestingly, he doubled down and rolled those profits into fruit trees, which made him even wealthier.
The Felix Gillet story is perhaps even more impressive. Gillet was a French sailor who immigrated to Boston, MA in 1852. Then made the long journey West ending in California in 1958. Initially, he opened a barbershop. He struggled with the business and caught a ship back to France in 1962. Once back home he went to work for a plant nursery. A couple of years later after catching the passion for the nursery and plant business, it struck him that California might really need something like this. He came back to the U.S. and in 1870 with about $250 in gold coins purchased 16 acres of land just outside town in Nevada City, CA and started establishing a farm and plant nursery that he would call the “Barren Hill Nursery”, becoming one of the first fruit and nut nurseries on the west coast of the United States.
Gillet’s land was mostly granite bedrock recently surfaced-mined, timbered, and left barren. While friends cast doubt on his success as a nurseryman, Gillet built a house and started to establish his Barren Hill Nursery while cutting hair for all of those coming in search of gold. In other words, he had to use his hair cutting money to finance the start of his nursery. In a bold and crazy move, Gillet took his entire life savings and purchased $3,000 worth of walnut, filbert, chestnut, mulberry, prune, and fig trees from his connections back France. He risked his entire personal wealth on hopes that this imported scion wood and nursery stock would arrive alive, and would not fail to grow in Nevada County, California. What a bet and what a huge home run!
By 1884 Gillet’s nursery was honored as “the finest nut-bearing tree nursery in the U.S.” His catalog at that time offered 17 varieties of walnut, including eight grafted from European varieties; seven varieties of chestnuts, six varieties of filberts, seven varieties of prunes, 55 varieties of English gooseberries, and 107 varieties of grapes. These numbers would increase; at one point, the nursery offered 241 types of grapes, including several varieties previously unknown in California. Dedicated to quality, he trialed all of the varieties on the poor soil and harsh climate of Barren Hill Nursery before offering them in his catalogs. The rumor is that Gillet planted all kinds of varieties of trees all over the place near his hometown and once the “gold rush” faded and demand slowed down, he simply couldn’t take of everything that he and his team had planted. A lot of the ground got sold in smaller tracts and broken up, and in many cases, some of the smaller orchards were abandoned. Gillet ran the main primary nursery until his death in 1908, publishing detailed annual catalogs featuring hundreds of varieties, many of which formed the foundation of the most important agricultural industries of the West.
Today, Felix Gillet is recognized as the most important California nurseryman of his generation. His introductions provided the primary varieties for the almond, walnut, hazelnut (filbert), chestnut, prune, cherry, pear, apricot, wine and table grape, fig, rose, and strawberry industries of the West. In addition, he grew and provided virtually every common temperate climate perennial edible species, including peaches, nectarines, apples, raspberries, blackberries, pecans, mulberries, asparagus, artichoke, citrus, olives, gooseberries, currants, and more. He also propagated numerous species of perennial ornamental and forest trees. The famed horticulturalists provided many thousands of plants to gardeners, homesteaders, and farmers throughout the United States.
It always amazes me how some of the most influential and wealthiest never set their sails in any one direction, but rather, it’s how they adjusted their sails and pivoted along their journey that made them their fortunes. Here’s a great example of a barber who pivoted and changed the world of agriculture. (Source: Felix Gillet Institute Rare Trees, NatGeo, AtlasObscura, Wiki, CivilEats)
