History of oats cultivation in United States

The oat (Avena sativa) was domesticated around 2000 BC. The hexaploid oats originated in the Hindu Kush region.

Oats were first brought to North America with other grains in 1602 and planted on Cuttyhunk, an island off the Massachusetts coasts by Scottish settlers. Culture of oats became important within 30 years of its initial introduction.

As early as 1786, George Washington sowed 580 acres to oats. By the 1860s and 1870s, the oat production had moved westward and upper Mississippi Valley, which is its major area of production today.

The early farmers of Pennsylvania were general and livestock farmers, a system to which the culture of oats was well suited, resulting in expansion of oat production.

The variety ‘Kherson’ imported from Russia in 1896 by the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station, selections from it, marked the beginning of the early common spring oat variety in the United States.
History of oats cultivation in United States

History of almond nut in United States

Explorers ate almonds while traveling the "Silk Road" between Asia and the Mediterranean. Before long, almond trees flourished in the Mediterranean, especially in Spain and Italy. Americans imported almonds in colonial times, but they did not become an important confections in the United States until almond groves in California began to produce large quantities  in the early twentieth century.

Almonds were brought to the United States with the early colonist but were only successful in California, where they thrived in the Central Valley’s Mediterranean climate of mild, wet winters and dry.

People may have eaten home-harvested almonds, but none of these nuts entered trade, either for domestic consumption or export. New England and the Mid-Atlantic states attempted to plant the first commercial orchards in the United States in 1840s. The US Patent Office assisted these efforts by giving free seeds to any American interested in the program.

In the early 1850s, Los Angeles, Sacramento and Monterey launched the first successful commercial venture.

Candied almonds (Jordan almond) and other confections that frequently contained almonds, such as English toffee and Turkish Delight, were sold in the United States in the nineteenth century, but it wasn’t until Milton Hershey decided to add almonds to his Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar in 1908 that almonds became an important food in America.

In 1853 almonds were displayed at a fair in San Francisco and by 1856 trees grown in California nurseries were available.

Many other candy makers later followed Hershey lead. These included the Bit-O-Honey bar (1924), the Heath Bar (1928) and Almond Joy, first marketed in 1948.

The Hershey Company released the Golden Almond chocolate bar in 1976 and the Symphony milk chocolate bar with almonds and toffee chips in 1989.

Today American almond production is centered in California’s Central Valley, which supplies more than 70 percent of all commercial almonds consumed in the world.
History of almond nut in United States

History of wheat in United States

Wheat from Sweden and the Netherlands were introduced into New York, New Jersey, and Delaware by 1638 and Spanish wheat was growing in California by 1770.

The introduction of wheat into the British and French settlements in North American was coeval with their occupation by the colonist, wheat, barley and rice, the grand vegetable sustenance of population, being all exotic plants.

In the early 1800s, Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia were known as the bread basket of the colonies, producing more than 60 percent of the new nation’s crop.

By 1884, nearly 30 cultivars of wheat were grown in only one county in New York State, and a number of cultivars were reportedly grown in Ohio by 1858 and in Missouri by 1881.

Marquis, outstanding bread wheat, was introduced into the United States in 1912 from Canada. It had been bred in Canada from a cross of Red Fife and Calcutta.

The introduction of Turkey hard red winter wheat into the United States by Russian Mennonite immigrants in 1872 – 1874 provided the basis for hard red winter wheat industry in the United States. These immigrants settled in Marion County, Kansas, in 1874 and produced their first crop of wheat in 1874-75.

Today, most of the hard red winter wheat presently grown in the United States can be traced in a large part to this introduction of the Mennonites.
History of wheat in United States

History of Oats in United States

Oats were first grown as weeds in barley and wheat fields in Mesopotamia in about 10,500 BC.

Oats were brought to North America from two parts of Europe. They were introduced by the Spain into the southern part of North America, and into the northern part of the continent (in cultivation form) by the English and North European.

The Scottish also brought oats to North America, but cultivated them for human consumption.

According to records of the earliest settlements, oats were first planted on Cuttyhunk, an island off the Massachusetts coast in 1602.

The location of major oats production shifted from east of the Mississippi prior to 1850 to the upper Mississippi Valley, with Illinois as the major producer. Oats are chiefly a European and North American crop.

These areas have the cool, moist climate to which oats are best adapted. Russia, Canada, the United States, Finland, and Poland are the leading oat producing countries.

Ferdinand Schumacher, a pioneer miller of Akron, Ohio, began hand-grinding oats in a rear room of his grocery store in 1854. Demand for his product was high, and he organized the German Mills American Oatmeal Factory in 1856.

An influx of German and Irish immigrants in the 1870s, and 1880s, who were accustomed to oats as a staple food, created increased market demand for oatmeal.

Most oats grown in North America today descend from Russia, Swedish and Greek ancestors.
History of Oats in United States

Apple in United States

The apple has been cultivated for nearly 2000 years in Europe with records dating back to Greece as early as 325 BC.

Apple cultivation in the United States has come a long way since the early American settlers brought with them seeds and some grafted trees of European varieties and introduced apples to the eastern coast of North America.

When the first English settlers in the South explored their surroundings, they found a profusion of wild fruits - grapes, persimmons, plums, and berries of all sorts. The only apple trees they found were crab apple trees that produced small, extremely sour fruit

Early settlers quickly remedied the situation by planting apple seeds brought from England. The first domestic apple trees of the New World grew from seeds.

Apple production in America remained very small until 1622 when the colonists imported honeybees from the mother country to help with the pollination that is essential to large-scale apple production.

Apple cultivation was later disseminated westward by Indian, traders, missionaries and the legendary Johnny Appleseed. Seedlings orchards were common in the South from the early 1600s until the mid 1800s.

This was a time of great movement of people and the opening of enormous new lands. In 1779, the French General Marquis de Lafayette entertained George Washington, general of the Continental Army, under the shade of an old apple tree for dinner and to map out strategy against the British in the Revolutionary war.

In 1824, Lafayette returned to the United States and was presented with walking cane carved from the same tree.

Commercial apple orchards as known today were practically nonexistent in North America until the beginning of the 20th century. Western New York and Virginia were the first places in which apple growing became successful business.
Apple in United States