Odd, Old News: The Horticultural Genius of Humboldt County

Albert Etter of Humboldt County from the Pacific Rural Press of 8/31/1912.

Nuggets of old news are served up by David Heller, one of our local historians.

“The year was 1893. A young man of twenty joined a group of friends on a fishing excursion at the Mattole River. Early one morning, he opted for a hike in order to explore the surrounding area. The young man climbed a bluff to observe the view and found himself overlooking the land that he knew would one day be his home. In 1894, when he reached the age of 21, Albert Etter made the journey to Eureka and filed claim to the parcel of land that he and his family would settle—the land now saw the Ettersburg Ranch”.

Odd Old News begins our last post of the year with a quote written by Ami Goldberg about Albert Felix Etter, Humboldt County’s most famous horticulturalist, for her article “Fascinating years at Ettersburg Ranch” in the September-October 1985 issue of the Humboldt Historian. It is impossible to do justice in a short article to this great man, the breadth and depth of his agricultural experiments, his professional renown, and contribution to the early history of the Ettersburg area.

One of thirteen children, Albert Etter grew up in Ferndale at the home of his parents Benjamin and Wilhelmina Etter. Albert had come to his love of plants at an early age, cultivating Dahlias and gooseberries and strawberries at age twelve. His experiments with both berries would continue for decades, and today he is still remembered for his extraordinary strawberries. One hundred years ago, travelers reported that the sweet scent of his 2,000 plant strawberry beds carried for miles.

Crop of 1911 Denny map of Ettersburg area.

He was the first of four of the Etter brothers who first came to settle in ‘a mountainous portion of Humboldt county which by reason of its inaccessibility was long regarded as practically worthless’—a remote area that would one day take the name Etter, and then Ettersburg. He and his brothers’ early years were taken up by the practical necessities of cooperatively building homesteads from scratch on adjacent properties. Prior to 1900, the press mentioned the Etter Brothers only as successful sheepmen, unaware of the private experimental orchard and nursery that Albert was just beginning to start.

The first new report of his agricultural endeavors appeared in the Humboldt Times in 1900:

Humboldt Times
August 15, 1900
APPLE CULTURE
It will undoubtedly be of interest to horticulturists in this county to know that at Ettersburg at the fruit ranch of Etter Bros, seven and one-half miles north of Shelter Cove, there is well under way what is perhaps the most intensive and complete experimental apple orchard that has ever been attempted in Humboldt county. Through the courtesy of the Agricultural Experimental stations connected with the University of California. Albert F. Etter has now growing in the Ettersburg nurseries over 450 varieties of apples and next season these will be increased by several hundred additional varieties. This collection will embrace not only all the standard varieties in cultivation but many varieties of local fame from all over the United States and also a very large number from foreign countries all over the world. Mr. Etter proposes planting one tree of each variety in an orchard by themselves for experimental purposes only. From the comprehensive scope of the work under way it will readily be seen that the benefit to be derived from it cannot be over-estimated, for if carried out systematically as it undoubtedly will be, it will give the planter of the future a chance to plant the very best varieties the world possesses today for any purposes. In short it will give us the very best the world has up to date, says the Enterprise. We cannot speak too highly of the spirit of progress shown by the Etter Bros, in making so extensive an experiment which will ultimately be of more benefit to the public than can ever accrue to themselves.

By 1904, his work had received wider attention, the Pacific Rural Press eagerly reported on Albert’s innovative work with strawberries, gooseberries, apples, forage plants, filberts, walnuts, clovers and soil science. A few years later, Etter had some 5,000 trees with 500-600 varieties of apples under study. He began writing regularly for the Pacific Rural Press, and authored two articles written for the Humboldt Times in 1907. The first Times article detailed his experiments with fruit and nuts. The second article expressed the need for better roads to his area as taking produce to town involved a sixty mile trip in a spring wagon. When he delivered his article manuscripts to the editor of the Times, he left samples of Hyde’s King apples weighing as much as 21 ounces, 15 ounce Wagners, and other apple varieties, including an almost dead white apple named the White Lady… just a few of his many strains.

Word of his innovative work grew in horticultural circles. Etter’s philosophy was that nature has all the answers if only man will work to find them. A keenly observant student of nature, Albert Etter was no imitator, he was an original genius, though the comparison was frequently made to Santa Rosa’s famous horticulturalist Luther Burbank. In 1908, he made the journey to see Burbank and reported on his visit:

Humboldt Times
December 4, 1908
ALBERT ETTER, WELL KNOWN HORTICULTURIST OF SOUTHERN HUMBOLDT, TELLS OF VISIT WITH BURBANK AT SANTA ROSA
By Albert F. Etter

It was Sunday afternoon about 3:30 o’clock. I went up the street and out to the bridge across Santa Rosa creek to where I was told Mr. Burbank lived. I asked a man on the corner if that house on the opposite corner was Mr. Burbank’s. He replied, “Yes,” and with a smile that seemed to say: “Young fellow, you will do well if you get a chance to say how do you do to Burbank.”

I found him on the front porch looking over some seeds he was getting ready to store away. I introduced myself and Mr. Burbank gave me a hearty handshake. While I anticipated a kindly welcome, I can truthfully say that never was I more cordially received anywhere by anyone, even a relative. He introduced me to his aged mother, now past 95 years old, and excusing himself for a few moments that he might set his seeds aside, we indulged in a friendly visit for about two hours, which passed all too quickly.

Mr. Burbank showed me a hybrid pear, a cross between Bartlett and Le Conte. It is exceedingly productive and as vigorous in growth as Le Conte, but the fruit is far inferior to Bartlett. By growing seedlings of it, however, he expects to realize what he is working for: the great vigor of the Le Conte type, in tree, and the quality of fruit found in the Bartlett. In working this out we have a good example of his method in the immense amount of material he will work over to get the result he desires. He will fruit about 40,000 of these seedlings. Hundreds of these are of course grafted onto a single tree and each trained to a single limb to economize space and hasten fruiting.

He then showed me some of his new seedling apples, some of which appear to have desirable characteristics. He declared that he was at a great disadvantage in working with the apple as the climate at Santa Rosa was unfavorable to the proper development of the fruit.

I then showed him from my grip a few samples of our apples grown at Ettersburg. These he said were the most perfect and best developed apples he had ever seen anywhere. “With such a climate,” said he, “you ought to be able to develop some wonderfully fine varieties.”

He commented on my work with strawberries, and said I had the foundation laid for some far reaching and valuable results. His knowledge of my strawberry work was gained through reading the record of my work as published In the Pacific Rural Press of last August and September, and not through personal correspondence, as our correspondence has been confined to a single letter on either side. He warmly praised my articles, and seemed to get some satisfaction out of what I wrote of the eminent scientist, Dr. de Vries.

I told Mr. Burbank that in writing as I did, I aimed to put the Idea of plant breeding in such a light that people could understand It. He smiled and said, “They don’t want to understand it. They prefer to come around and ask fool questions—and wonder at simple everyday work.”

“And, I interjected, “call you Wizard;” and he laughed, flung it back at me, saying, “They’ll call you that too.”

Says I, “Then there will be another chance for me to say what I think.”

But he only added: “It won’t do a bit of good. Time and again I have said I have no secrets, that it is nothing but practical work, but what good does it do?” And Mr. Burbank showed that he was far from pleased at the light in which he and his work is held by so many people who ought to have a little common sense, and know better.

Mr. Burbank then took me to his garden across the street. This plot contains about two acres, I believe, and it is kept in the highest state of cultivation. It is all in raised beds, on account of the adobe nature of the land, as otherwise it would become exceedingly wet in the winter. In this garden is cactus in many species and many other plants in great variety, and then more cactus. Cactus indeed is represented in everything from the seed just coming up to a specimen perhaps ten feet high.

Mr. Burbank showed me the plot where he was growing the Bose Ettersburg strawberry. Just a little plot where the original dozen plants he secured from me had been put in and left to form a bed all by themselves. They certainly look well, and he says they bear well, producing two crops a year, which is more than they ever did for me.

I thanked Mr. Burbank for his kindness in showing me about. He expressed himself as being very glad that I had called on him, as he always liked to meet his co-workers, and invited me to call again when I traveled that way. In parting he added, “It is different, though, with the curious visitors who from all parts of the country want me to show them around. I am so busy I haven’t a minute to myself. To visit with all who call on me would be out of the question. With seventeen men working in my gardens and two stenographers in the office, I am more than busy.’

“I wish you the biggest kind of success in your work. Originality and persistence is all that you require to succeed.” And he continued: “What you see to work out now is only a ray of what will be opened to you as you work on. The field is too big for rivalry.” His parting admonishment was: “Have confidence in yourself and look out for people with schemes to help you.”

In 1912, after Albert had written a number of articles for the Pacific Rural Press, a visit to the Etter Ranch led to the paper’s editor writing a history of the highly successful Etter Brothers ranch, including a description the all important first steps of clearing the land and preparing the soil:

Pacific Rural Press
August 31, 1912
HOW A MAN MADE HIMSELF IN THE WOODS.
[By our Associate Editor]

California is a remarkable country when it comes to soil, climate and everything else that favors plant growth, but it is equally remarkable for the kind of men that it develops and attracts to itself to take advantage of the good things that nature has stored up. One example of the kind of men attracted is Luther Burbank, who is showing the world that the proposition of developing new and valuable varieties of plants has as great possibilities in increasing production as getting the right kind of soil and climate for the varieties we have, and it was the California conditions that made his best work possible.

And now the real merits of the State are apparent from the fact that there have grown up within our borders other men who are originating new and valuable varieties of plants that surpass in quality and productiveness the old varieties as much as California soils and climate surpass those of less favored regions. Such a man is Albert F. Etter, whom most readers of the Pacific Rural Press already know as a progressive and successful horticulturist, although up until the present time his real achievements in plant breeding have not been adequately known. He has made rapid progress in plant breeding and has established the merits of his methods by his results. He has, for example, originated the crossing and selection of a new class of strawberries that retain all the merits of the ordinary cultivated varieties of berries, but also have other very valuable qualities of fruit and characters of plants that the others do not have, and greatly surpass them in vigor and productiveness and a suitability to California conditions. Less work has been done with strawberries than with some other kinds of plants, though the success that has been attained with the little time that has been put upon them mid the results that have followed the work on strawberries indicate what can be expected in plant breeding in future years. But before more attention is given the plants more should be given the man, as his history and all the obstacles that he has had to overcome have been as interesting as the plant breeding itself and the new varieties he has developed.

The Man Himself.—His father came to America from Switzerland when a youth and served through the Mexican war, coming to California in early days. The father was a native of southern Germany, but came to America in early childhood. Albert was seventh in a family of twelve, all but one being boys, and was born in El Dorado county on Thanksgiving Day, 1872.

Soon after that the Etter family moved to the Eel River valley in Humboldt county, and nearly all of the sons are ranching in the county now. From his earliest youth Albert Etter was interested in plants and started a garden for his own use about as soon as he was able to do anything. By the time he was twelve he had gotten beyond the stage where he was satisfied in merely growing things that other people were growing, and was planting seeds of strawberries and dahlias to see if new varieties of strawberries could be secured and new colors given to the dahlias. It is not to be expected that a boy of 12 would understand the scientific side of plant breeding, especially at a time when little was known of the subject, much less the general public. But before he was out of his teens the dahlias were cutting up all sorts of capers, a seedling of a valuable new type of strawberry had been secured, and by observation, experience and study the best methods of breeding new plant varieties had been determined.

All of the schooling Albert Etter secured came before his sixteenth year. By that time he had developed a taste for study, an ability for careful observation, and an originality of thought that enabled him to educate himself thoroughly from that time on.

The Making of a Homestead.—At the age 21 the work in plant experimentation was almost brought to a standstill on account of moving away from the fogs and dampness of the Eel River valley to a more sunny and agreeable location in the mountains of southern Humboldt county, where he and an older brother, August A. Etter, took up government land and started to build themselves a home.

For seventeen years the two brothers worked alone, clearing the land, making it worth cultivating and putting it into a condition where it would be profitable to farm. Other members of the family took up and developed surrounding land, until at present the various Etter brothers who live in the vicinity own together about 2200 acres of land. Somewhat over a year ago a third brother, Fred, and his wife came to live with August and Albert Etter, otherwise the two brothers did all the work of developing land that all other land owners, in the district considered worthless for cultivation.

After the strain of 19 years of hard work Albert Etter looks about six years younger than his actual age and of a type that will grow old or be oppressed by age very slowly. A rather delicate constitution has by hard outdoor work and clean rational living given away to a vitality that enables him to start work at daybreak, keep working until supper, finish the day by milking and caring for two family cows and then read enough in the evening to keep good track of agricultural world news and progress.

The making of the Etter ranch in itself is an object lesson upon what can be accomplished under the most unpromising conditions in California. The mountains of Humboldt county contain some of the finest fruit land in the world, especially for apple and berry growing, but the county, except in the vicinity of Humboldt bay, is almost entirely undeveloped on account of difficulties in transportation. The mountains are all very heavily wooded, but almost nothing is done with them and with the narrow mountain valleys except to cut off the tanbark and the timber, where the latter can be moved with any profit. In the few clear spaces a few beef cattle and some hogs are raised, though not enough for the county’s needs. Otherwise, in the mountains intensive farming is practically unknown.

The Etter ranch, through transportation difficulties, is apparently about as poorly located for intensive farming as any part of the county. It is located about six miles east of Briceland far up along the Mattole river, two days’ trip overland by stage to Ferndale, the same time distant to either Willits or Fort Bragg on the south. The ocean is about ten miles distant over a range of mountains, but it is 20 miles by a rough mountain road to Shelter Cove, the nearest steamer landing.

Under such conditions, the cost of getting goods in or out was and is almost prohibitive, and the Etter brothers faced the task of clearing the land and making enough to live on during the process, and then finding a crop that would do well and that could be sold for a little more than enough to pay the freight after it was ready. People twice as well located had considered such a task hopeless.

On the Etter ranch now with the country more developed, the nearest store six miles away and distributing goods for a score of miles in either direction, the nearest shipping point 20 miles away over a rough mountain road, the nearest railroads two days’ distant by stage, and the mountain stages of the vicinity averaging about two passengers a week, the mails and a few groceries, it is necessary to be self-supporting to a degree that can hardly be appreciated in this age of specialization. Twenty years ago the proposition of making a home in such a location was still more difficult and could be accomplished only by the exercise of an ability to turn one’s hand to any kind of work and make a success out of it.

A person has to eat, but the land was rough and uncleared. A person must live, but there was no wood for a house except what was growing in the forest. Everything was very expensive on account of isolation, and there was almost nothing to earn money with. The land was so thickly covered with timber and underbrush that it was hard to clear, and after clearing, the soil was, until wet dried out and exposed to the sun for a season or so, too acid to be very productive.

The standing timber was used to build barns and a cabin, the framework being of split timber and the outside of shakes. Even now, all the lumber used on the ranch is made on the place in a mill run by Fred Etter, the third brother, who now lives with Albert and August Etter. This mill supplies lumber to the neighbors and ultimately may cut up the hardwoods for furniture manufacture.

The first rough clearing of some land was followed by turning on a herd of goats, part of which were grade Angoras. These, especially when bred up by the use of good bucks, were one of the main sources of revenue, while their flesh furnished and still furnishes an important part of the diet. By them also the land was made useful for growing of hay for the horses and a milch cow or so, pasture for the same, vegetables and field crops for the family and live stock and for the fruit which was to be sold, the thing for which the ranch was established, and for the plant breeding, to which a little time could occasionally be given.

There is no necessity for going into detail upon the subject; it is enough to say that finally the ranch has been put on a paying basis, that success has been attained, and that sufficient time can now be given to the development of new varieties of fruits and vegetables to accomplish great things, indications of which are given by the plants already experimented with, especially the strawberries spoken of before.

The ranch is an independent principality, now that practically everything used for man and animal, except sugar, flour and a few other eatables, is produced on the place. Many of the tools to work with have been made, the lumber for the buildings made, the buildings themselves erected, the varieties of crops grown found to be best by experimentation, and the crops manufactured and packed so as to be in the smallest compass but most valuable condition.

To do this has meant an ability to turn one’s hand to every kind of work, to work from early to late, and in doing it Albert Etter has been able to obtain a wide and accurate agricultural education, to keep in close touch with all news and problems of importance, and to develop varieties of plants that are of exceptional interest and value to his native State. There is not time to describe these now and they will be left until a later issue.

Unable to avoid being labeled a “wizard” and “Humboldt’s Burbank”, Etter remained a modest man, deeply engrossed his great work. As well as continuing to conduct his many hybridizing and grafting experiments at his “Mountain Home of Science”, Etter became involved in organizations promoting Humboldt County apples both at state and local fairs. He was a driving force behind the creation of the Northern California Apple Shows. At the second show in 1919, apple growers from around the state, and out of state, were able to present their wares:

“A half million of apples of all colors is a sight seldom seen even in the largest apple-growing sections. Although there will be no bearded ladies, educated apes, snake charmers or shell workers at this show, there will be plenty to amuse and entertain and it will represent in the highest sense the progressive development of an enlightened agricultural era….Albert Etter will have a special exhibit of the products of the Ettersburg Experiment place which will rival anything ever seen in America. Surrounding the bandstand will be displayed exhibits of apple and other fruit jellies and jams, cider, vinegar, dried apples Äid other byproducts. On the opposite side will be pears, peaches, quinces, grapes, figs and nuts, all intertwined with sprays of red-berried rose vines- autumn leaves and fall flowers, the whole artistically lighted with colored lights. Ripe strawberries and cherries are two novelties which will attract attention in this section.” (Blue Lake Advocate, 9/27/1919)

Albert Etter and his family played a large part in early Ettersburg history as well as leaving a unique horticultural legacy. His apple varieties and strawberry strains were popular on farms throughout the county, though over time many strains have disappeared. One wonders in passing neglected apple trees on old homesteads how many may be Etter apple varieties. To their credit, efforts to identify and preserve Etter apple strains from the trees that remained on the Etter Ranch have been pursued by the Fishman family since 1986.

With this somewhat cursory coverage of Albert Etter, Humboldt County’s resident horticultural genius, Odd Old News will go into hibernation for the winter. One weary old brain gets to rest, and Kym, without whom these posts wouldn’t happen, will hopefully get an extra hour of sleep on Thursday nights. Happy New Year to all, and may 2022 be easier and healthier for us all!

Earlier Odd and Old News:

There are many, but here are the most recent:

• Dog Tales…
• Early Plans for an East West Railroad to Humboldt County
• Northern California in the Seventies
• The Pioneer Philanthropist
• The Horrible History of Round Valley, Part One
• The Horrible History of Round Valley (Part 2)
• A Time When Humboldt County Was Known For Its Spuds, Not Buds
• The ‘Million Dollar Mill that Never Milled’
• Old Clubfoot And Reelfoot—Grizzly Marauders of Northern California
• Pioneer Oldtimer on Newcomers
• As We Close in on the Anniversary of the 1964 Flood, We Look Further Back to the Flood of 1879