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The
Orchard Home, 1889 Below is a transcription of an 1889 real estate brochure, published to promote the Orchard Home district, located between Medford and Jacksonville on what would come to be called the Jacksonville Highway.
ISSUED
BY THE
T
H E IT IS A LAND FOR THE HOMESEEKERS, A SMILING VALLEY OF ORCHARDS, OF PROLIFIC, BOUNTEOUS HARVESTS AND CLOUDLESS SKIES. SAN
FRANCISCO: 1889.
YOUR
CITY HOME probably covers twenty-five feet front. Over eight times that
distance each way would be but one acre. Is not an acre larger than
your imagination depicted? We would have you realize that an acre of
ground in this land of bounteous harvests and unclouded skies will make
a beautiful and profitable home for any family of modest wants. It is
impossible to present to you, with even the aid of the searching
camera, a picture of the broad domain of the valley of the Rogue River.
For many miles its fertile and gentle undulating plain stretches to the
compass points. We present to you, however, a picture of a small
portion of this valley of orchards. In the right background, just
beyond the grove of oaks whose shadowy outline alone is depicted, is
the site of our ORCHARD HOME. We cannot pass unnoticed the lofty beauty
of these oaks. They are just on the eastern border of the Orchard Home.
You can look down their aisles and into their deep shadows, where the
photographic light and the fingers of science have lastingly engraved
them. Verily, they are the first-born of the valley.
In the valley all the fruits known to the Temperate zone grow in unchecked and riotous profusion. Apples, apricots, almonds, cherries, peaches, plums, pears, prunes, nectarines, grapes, figs, olives and walnuts grow equally well to the industrious orchardist. We desire to convince you that cultivated orchard ground is a safer and better paying investment than any savings bank. A small orchard of peach trees near the Orchard Home yielded, in 1887, six hundred pounds per tree, which were sold at three cents a pound, or eighteen dollars for the fruit of each tree, bringing in at the rate of $1,800 an acre. The fruit from three hundred early Crawford and Muir peach trees, when three years old, sold for an average of three dollars a tree. This orchard is planted sixteen and one-half feet between the rows, making one hundred and sixty trees to the acre, and thus yielding over $450 an acre. It is not uncommon for peach trees to bear considerably the second year after transplanting. A White Winter Pearmain apple tree produced, in 1886, fifty-seven bushels of merchantable apples, and, in 1887, sixty-four bushels. Quite often here, a box holding a bushel is packed full with sixty apples. There are no better flavored or more crisp or juicy apples raised than here in this valley. Pears mature exquisitely fine flavored and often weighing from two to two and one-half pounds. In this vicinity there were picked from seventy-two peach trees (much less than an acre), which are from four to seven years old, 370 boxes of peaches, which sold for $350. This is at the rate of over six hundred dollars an acre. Prune trees five years old bear eighty pounds per tree. The prune is a little later bearing than the peach, and does not do so much until about four years old; but the prune is a standard fruit, easily dried and handled, will keep for years, and can be shipped to the markets of the world. Estimating the minimum number of trees to the acre at one hundred, the net value of the product, after the trees are five years old, will be from three hundred to five hundred dollars an acre per year. The average yield per tree in value will easily exceed three dollars per year; and it is a certain computation that after the trees are three years old they will produce more than enough fruit in one year to pay for the land. You can sell the fruit on the trees every year, through agents here, without coming. Your land will pay for itself in less than five years. You simply lend the money for its purchase in such easy payments as will not in the least inconvenience you. If you earn sixty dollars per month, live on fifty dollars and devote the balance to paying for a beautiful place which will serve you as a home, or which will earn you an income, or which you can sell in four years for at least $1,000 an acre [sic].  "Here
will I build me a Home."
Last
revised June 19, 2009IN
ALMOST the geographical center of this valley is situated the tract of
land upon which we have founded the Orchard Home. It is not virgin
soil. It is thoroughly cleared, and is now bearing a harvest for its
owner. It is located a little over a mile from the limits of the town
of Medford, Jackson County, Oregon. It may be stated incidentally that
it is within one mile of the railroad track, three miles from
Jacksonville, the county seat, fronts for a half a mile on the county
road, and between Jacksonville and Medford; and less than one-half mile
from the land will pass the electric railroad. [The Rogue
River Valley Railway between Jacksonville and Medford, which was
completed three years later, was never electrified.]
The county has a present population of over eighteen thousand, many
schools, and over 275,000 acres of land under cultivation. It is half
way between Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco, on the main traveled
railway line, and just far enough south to miss the rain belt of
Northern Oregon and yet be within those climatic lines which give to
California her cloudless and sunny days and a winter whose warm and
gentle rains are the only climatic vexation. There can be no question
of the value of this location, both for beauty and availability; and
there can be still less question of the fertility of the soil.
We have cut this land up into acre tracts. Affording a way of ingress and egress to and from each acre has of necessity used considerable land in roadways. We propose to plant each acre in the variety, or varieties, of fruit trees which each purchaser may indicate as his or her choice, and this at no additional cost to the purchaser. We guarantee to cultivate the orchard without cost to yourself until we give you a deed. We positively guarantee that when we turn the acre over to you, and give you the deed, that upon it (the acre) will be a thrifty-growing orchard. If the young trees die or fail from any reason during the term of the contract, we will replant them and provide against any failure. Before the conclusion of the second year, the purchaser will have paid all the installments and will have received a deed. It is expected that the acre will bear sufficient fruit the third year to at least pay for its cultivation, and in the fourth year, with any care whatever, it will repay the original cost of the land. The title to the land is perfect, being government patent. We divide the payments into installments, as is hereafter shown. After the first payment is made, we then commence to plant the land with such orchard trees as the purchaser indicates. At all times during the contract, we will cause the ground to be cultivated and cared for, so that the trees may grow rapidly and strong. We will act as agents for the purchaser, when the land is paid for and a deed recorded, in selling at wholesale the fruit product from the trees. You need not come here to reap the harvest from this speculation. Your acre will, in reasonable probability, after the trees are full grown, produce 10,000 pounds, annually, of the choicest fruit. We can cause it to be boxed and shipped to you. If you live in San Francisco, the freight on this magnificent present of fruit will be but fifty dollars, and if in Portland only twenty-eight dollars. In other words, we propose to make this a paying investment for those persons whose small incomes will neither permit them to make large investments, nor to lose what little they possess. With or without houses on these acre lots, they will rent readily at yearly rates and furnish a certain and continuing income. Money invested in land of this character can not be lost; and the land is a savings bank whose solvency and uninterrupted dividends can never be doubted. You must remember that this is not an experiment. Within sight of this ground are hundreds of acres of bearing orchards. If you live at any point west of a line drawn south from the city of Chicago, make inquiry of the railroad officials as to the amount of freight on a carload of fruit from here; and you will be astonished to find that you can cause your fruit to be shipped directly to your home at a large profit. This is true if two persons reside in one place, as the product of their two acres will be just about a carload of fruit.  "This
is a Princely gift."
WE
PROPOSE to sell this land to you for a net rate of two hundred and
fifty dollars an acre. We will improve it for you and pay all the
taxes, and when you have paid for it, which will be in two years, we
will give you a deed for it. The land will be fully improved and
cultivated, and with a prosperous, thrifty, profitable orchard of
choice fruit trees, without any further cost to you for all time. We
give you two years to pay for it. You are to pay us the trifling sum of
twenty dollars, when we will give you a contract all signed for the
piece of ground you pick out, and you are to pay us ten dollars a month
until it is paid for. This will take twenty-three equal
payments,
one month apart. This is not a wildcat investment. We will give you any
number of substantial references as to the value of this property.
Homeseekers all over the country are making inquiries. Improved orchard
land, with bearing orchard of fruit trees, has an actual cash market
value of five hundred dollars an acre anywhere in this country; and
that is what you can sell your acre for when your last payment, in two
years, is made.
Examine the contract we inclose you. That is the form of contract we make. Mark upon the plat of ground we inclose you the particular acre you think you would like. There is no advantage. The soil is equally fertile and the spot equally accessible. Send back the contract with your name and address, with your acre spot marked upon the plat (if we cannot sell you that one, we will sell you one close by); indicate the character of trees you want planted; send a bank draft, post office or express order for twenty dollars, payable to the Orchard Home Association, or Henry Klippel, President. We will then return to you the contract, all properly filled out, and executed under the corporate seal, which you will keep. Every month thereafter we will notify you when your monthly payment comes due. If, at any time, you desire to pay it all, we will make a dedication or discount for interest, at the rate of six per cent per annum. We will have a few lots of two and four acres each. These will cost just twice and four times the amount of an acre lot. Do not throw this aside and think no more of it. You can well afford to give this money out of your salary. Then, if sickness come over you, you have a beautiful place to go to, or an investment which you can turn into cash in an hour's notice. No more congenial community, and no more delightful spot, could be well devised for a home. The railroad fare is very cheap; and you will certainly be convinced, if you come, that, aside from the financial advantages, this place possesses all the life-healing and life-giving gifts which any enthusiast may demand.  "I
will sing you a
song, melodied with Nature's music."
UPON
THE SLOPE which leads to the tireless waters of the Pacific, there is
no valley more beautiful than this of Rogue River. The waters of the
river, softly gliding over their gravelly bed, never clouded except
when they break in snowy spray, find their way to the sea through a
principality of alluvial soil. Along the river the wild
grapevine
and cherry, planted by Nature, are bending in tangled confusion with
their burdens of purple and scarlet fruit. The tawny gold of the
ripening and far-reaching grain fields is relieved by the bright green
of the tasseled and waving corn. The glossy and deepening green of the
orchards is brightened by the gleams of purple and yellow and red,
which come from their weight of juicy fruit. The whole landscape, with
its sheen of white and flowing water, is a panorama of color which
seems to change and move in the sunlight and gentle breeze, and is
bordered by the melting haze of the far-reaching forest on the
foothills and mountains. To Nature's lenses is conveyed a gentle
impression of dark, cool green growing into the purple distance, and
lighted by the bright blue of the crested sky.
" 'Mid Nature's tangled drapery" shows a scene close to the Orchard Home. It evidences how marvelously fertile is this land, even when untouched by the plow. To those who delight in the wonders and beauties with which Nature has endowed this border line of the Occident, the foothills and mountains and trackless forest, which inclose this jewel of a valley as a setting, are a storehouse of grand and magic scenes and wonders. The lofty firs and pines, with their fantastic garb of yellow Spanish moss; the thicket fastnesses of the red manzanita and the yellow madrone; the deep ravines, into whose shadows the sunlight never peers; the mighty peaks, crowned with volcanic basins and mantled with garbs of perpetual white,--all shrouded in a lasting silence, broken only by an occasional woodman's axe, the snapping of twigs, the music of the wind in the topmost branches of the pines, the rushing of waters on their way to the sea, and sentient with Indian legends of the occult world,--all repulse the timorous, and convince the boldest that they are in Wonderland. Here is Crater Lake, the deepest body of fresh water in the world. The lead has gone down in its icy, clear depths three thousand feet; and yet its mysteries are unfathomed. Here breaks from a mountain side, from some subterranean lake, a vast volume of rushing water, the source of a mighty river. Here, on the crest, is the spot called Cinnabar, a great, undeveloped mine of quicksilver. No night falls and finds an Indian there; for they aver that there a devil abides, who punishes those who remain by leaving them toothless and bald. Springs of sparkling soda water, and others with strange taste of minerals, some hot and some the temperature almost of ice, break out with a rush from the mountain sides. And as the observer wonders, he yet gazes with entranced eye upon the picture. In autumn, the artist fingers of King Frost have touched the mountain sides with the paints of Nature; and long lines of maples and alders and quaking asp and box-elders are clothed in scarlet and yellow and russet and the tints of the opal; and, as we climb to the serrated crest of the mountains, we look upon the grandest picture of all,--the valley of the Rogue River, dotted with homes.  As satiate with the boundless play Of sunshine in its green array." You can not afford to neglect this opportunity. Around and about this land is growing a necklace of young cities. Ashland, Medford, Jacksonville, Central Point and Gold Hill, all within the county, each almost within cannon-shot of the Orchard Home. Here, midway between San Francisco and Portland, is being built a "booming" young city. Mechanics and laborers, skilled and unskilled, the wage-earners and the homeseekers, may here build their homes, and find labor for their willing hands, and a peaceful prosperity for their families.  |
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