Note 86 — Chapter V · THE MINOR VARIETIES OF CHERRIES (continued 3)

Oregon has given to pomology two notable breeders of cherries, Seth Lewelling and C. E. Hoskins, the subject of this sketch. Cyrus Edwin Hoskins was born on a farm in Clinton County, Ohio, July 3, 1842, and there he grew to manhood. Almost at the first call for men to defend the Union in the Civil War, Mr. Hoskins responded and joined the 13th Ohio regiment, serving until the close of the war. Returning to Ohio, he gave attention to fruit culture, testing many varieties of several fruits and producing some new grapes and berries. In 1877 Mr. Hoskins moved to Newberg, Yamhill County, Oregon, settling on new land and thus becoming a pioneer in the Northwest. His first pomological venture in Oregon was in growing prunes, his orchard of this fruit being one of the first, and he is credited with having built one of the first evaporators for the curing of prunes in America. For some years he maintained his prune ranch and evaporator, developing a product that gave him the highest reputation in prune markets and made him one of the leading authorities on this fruit in the United States. Early in his orchard work in Oregon Mr. Hoskins began to produce new varieties of cherries and soon offered for sale a number of promising seedlings of which Vesta, Lake, Occident, Stryker and Hoskins were most worthy. Unfortunately, ill health in the family compelled Mr. Hoskins to move from Yamhill County, to which place, after having spent several years in Jackson County, Oregon, and in the Hawaiian Islands, he returned with the expectation of taking up his work in breeding cherries and prunes, but his death, August 18, 1908, occurred before his work had been again well begun. The Pacific Northwest owes a debt of gratitude to Mr. Hoskins for the spendid part he played in developing the fruit industry of that region and pomologists the country over owe him much for his labors in breeding cherries.