Today I visited the old nursery remnants of John W. Hershey’s Downingtown, PA tree crops nursery. J. Russell Smith, author of Tree Crops, mentions John W. Hershey’s now defunct tree nursery in his book repeatedly. From what I can gather John Hershey worked tirelessly toward the improvement of native fruit and nut trees in the region.
Much like J Russell Smith, John Hershey saw the future merits of pursuing perennial and tree based agriculture over annual row crop agriculture. At Hershey’s Downingtown, PA nursery he worked to breed and propagate native trees for use as food for both humans and livestock. While the land was sold off after Hershey’s death his work still stands tall today.
In addition to repeatedly mentioning the work of Hershey in Tree Crops, J Russell Smith even goes as far as to provide a map of Hershey plantings. As you can expect much of the trees have been cut down to make way for office buildings and apartment complexes but plenty of improved fruit and nut trees still remain to this day. Some say this Downingtown tree breeding ground was one of the best tree crop collections of its day. Judging from the size of a few of the remaining walnuts I can see how this could very well be the case.
Living less than an hour and a half from this site I am amazed I hadn’t found out about these remaining trees sooner. In a few minutes of walking through what’s left of the trees I was able to gather a massive seed stock. Here is what I was able to spot from my brief visit: oaks, persimmons, pecans, hickories, honeylocust, apples, chestnuts, and walnuts. My guess is that there are probably many more fruit and nut trees that I didn’t spot. I guess further research and a second trip are necessary to dig deeper and find additional improved native tree crops.
Pictures of the trees are sure to follow. As for now enjoy this picture of a few black walnuts on the left harvested from Hershey’s trees and native black walnuts harvested from a few local trees on the right. Have you been to Hershey’s old tree nursery? Or do you know of a local stand of native fruit or nut trees of significance? If so we would love to hear from you about it.