To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Researching Agricultural History
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 13:11:56 -0700 (PDT)
Don't overlook the public library as a source of information. You may be surprised at what might be lurking in their special collections. Also librarians tend to be very helpful in pointing you in the right direction. Otherwise, I understand the Berkely botanical garden has some well informed people working there. I just wish I could get my hands on some seed from their heat-resistant redwoods. everyone around here would just think they were cypress trees for the first twenty years or so.
From: Spidra Webster
<spidra@speakeasy.net> To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org> Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2009 2:01:51 PM Subject: [NAFEX] Researching Agricultural History
Once upon a time the SF Bay Area grew loads & loads of fruit. I'm interested in finding out what varieties used to be grown here but I really don't know how to go about such research. I assume such records aren't just laying around at the public library. Should I be trying to see if there are any century-old nurseries around that still have records? Should I be talking to folks at UC Davis and other ag departments? I'm not even sure I have the time to do obscure research like this but I think it would be really interesting to find out. I