Yorba Linda has two claims to fame. The first is that Nixon was born here and the site where he was born is currently the Nixon Library. The second is that the Fuerte avocado was developed here when it proved to be the only variety that didn't freeze to the ground during a cold snap in 1913.
I looked for a website but only found this PDF:
quote:
Frederick O. Popenoe, owner of the West India Gardens nursery in Altadena, Los Angeles County, sent his son, Wilson Popenoe, and his employee Carl Schmidt, on collecting expeditions in 1911 to find superior selections of avocado that might be productive in California. Carl Schmidt sought out fruit that looked good in the market places, then tried to follow the trail back to the tree to sample budwood for shipment to California. Schmidt was familiar with the avocados sent from Atlixco and he did most of his collecting in this region. One of the budwood samples taken from a tree in the backyard of Senor Le Blanc in Atlixco was labeled “No. 15” – a producer of fruit of exceptional quality. These buds were grafted onto seedlings at the nursery in Altadena. A devastating freeze in the winter of 1913 killed most of the avocado trees in the nursery, however “No. 15” survived. A batch of 50 nursery trees of the hardy new No. 15 variety were reluctantly accepted by grower John T. Whedon in lieu of varieties ordered earlier, but frozen in the nursery. F. O. Popenoe, noting their hardiness for having survived the freeze “named them ‘Fuerte’ after the Spanish word for strong” (Poole and Poole 1967).
“The Fuerte trees were planted on Whedon’s place near Yorba Linda (Orange Co.) on March 12, 1914, thereby establishing the first orchard of the cultivar that would come to be for many years the industry’s principal, market-preferred variety—the variety, indeed, upon which the California avocado industry was built, and that was introduced and grown successfully in many other countries” (Shepherd 1991).
This small orchard was to prove profitable for Whedon. As described by Poole and Poole, “When his orchard came into production he had standing orders from hotels in Los Angeles and San Francisco who were willing to take all he could ship, paying as much as $12.00 per dozen. Because of the Fuerte’s cold resistance and high quality fruit, the buds from his trees were in great demand, and in some years, he realized as much as $6,000 from buds alone (Poole and Poole, 1967).
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The article states that Joshua Trees grow in elevations ranging from 1500 ft. to 6000 ft., and given the right microclimate I am sure that's correct. For the most part, though, they are much more fussy than that, appearing at about 3000 ft. and thinning out/disappearing at about 4000 ft. You can actually see this as you drive across the desert. Crest a hill and you see them flourishing, drop in to a canyon and they disappear.
One of our favorite camping spots is outside of Barstow in what is now the greater Ft. Irwin area. We park under one of the largest Joshua Trees I have ever seen, and as you drive the dirt roads you can see dense stands of the trees where the microclimate is right and abruptly lose sight of them as you drop down a little lower in elevation. They look really cool with snow on them.
With the expansion of Ft. Irwin, I am not sure we can camp there any more. That would be a shame as it is a beautiful area.
-------------------------------- Life is short. Play with your dog.
