N. S. Bennett, proprietor of the Eden Valley Nurseries, reported last evening that up to that time he had booked orders for 61,236 fruit trees for the coming season's delivery. Pears take the lead, with apples a close second. In the former class, Bartletts and D'Anjous were favorites. The Newtown is the choice of apple buyers, with a good many Jonathans, which are to be used for cross-pollination purposes. The Elberta is the leader in the peach line. These trees will plant from 1000 to 1200 acres, which shows there is to be a great addition to the orchard area of this valley by next spring.
Medford Mail, October 8, 1909, page 1

    The Eden Valley Nursery of Medford has a unique exhibit at the fair in the way of an array of cards so displayed that they represent the actual number of trees, shrubs, vines, etc. sold, together with the name of each individual purchaser. Last season the figures of nursery stock sales ran over 62,000 in number, and this season the cards already represent 71,000 items, with the expectation that the number will eventually pass the 100,000 mark.--Ashland Tidings.
Medford Mail, October 15, 1909, page 6


    Six heavily loaded trucks of fruit trees passed out on North Central today, consigned to Mr. N. S. Bennett of the popular Eden Nursery.
"Social and Personal," Medford Mail Tribune, November 21, 1909, page 7

To the Editor of the Sun:
    I have just finished reading your editorial in this morning's issue of the Sun about the Garden of Eden, and I want to thank you for giving the public this information, for many times I have been asked why I named my nursery the Eden Valley Nursery, and now your editorial makes everything clear to the people.
    I have contended for years that this valley should be called Eden Valley. The Eden precinct that covered the portion of the valley west and north of Phoenix has long since been made a part of other precincts, and now the Eden Valley Orchards and the Eden Valley Nursery are about the only institutions that are still loyal to the garden spot of the valley. The heeling grounds now used are not a block from the spot which, according to your reckoning, was the Garden of Eden. Strange as it may seem, one of Adam's descendants is at this time owner of the Eden Valley Nursery and offering for sale apple trees true to the original type.
    Noah, the man behind the Eden Valley Nursery (not the boat-builder), is kept busy at the delivery yards and has no time to roam over the desert. However, he is a booster for irrigation.
    Your editorial is very good and explains many heretofore mysteries. However, you failed to state that Noah was still on the job.
        NOAH S. BENNETT
        Prop., Eden Valley Nurseries
        Medford, Or., February 6.
Medford Sun, February 7, 1912, page 2




    N. L. [sic] Bennett and family spent July 4 on the snow-capped summit of Ashland Peak. Photographs were taken of the children playing in the snow and making a snowman.
"Local and Personal," Medford Mail Tribune, July 6, 1915, page 2



    N. S. Bennett has sprung a good one. He notified the police to increase their force on Tuesday night, as the members of the Pacific Coast Nurserymen's Association are all professional "grafters."
"Local and Personal," Medford Mail Tribune, June 16, 1916, page 2


    N. S. Bennett and family, of the Eden Valley Nursery, have just returned from a three days' camping trip on Grayback Creek. They were so well pleased with the caves and the trout fishing that they will return to be packed to their old camp after the hunting season opens.
"Caves Camp," Rogue River Courier, Grants Pass, August 7, 1916, page 3




    Among Monday's citizens who made flights on the Medford airplane was N. S. Bennett, who was taken to Ashland and return in Old Sturdy at an average height of about 3000 feet. Mr. Bennett was delighted with the journey. The plane is flying at Yreka today.
"Local Briefs," Medford Mail Tribune, August 5, 1919, page 2


937 North Central, Medford, Oregon
Noah S. Bennett, 53, nursery proprietor, born in Iowa, father born New Hampshire, mother Pennsylvania
Belle B. Bennett, 52, born in Iowa, father born Scotland, mother Pennsylvania
Cora B. Bennett, 29, fruit packer, born in Oregon
Mary A. Bennett, 21, fruit packer, born in Iowa
Lester L. Bennett, 13, born in Oregon
U.S. Census, enumerated January 9, 1920


    The following Saturday it began to snow, and before it let up there was 17¼ inches of snow on the ground. The weather was not so cold at that time as during the recent big snowfall, which amounted to a foot, and if Mr. Bennett's memory serves him right the thermometer stood about 8 degrees above zero, whereas during the recent snowfall it was about 10 degrees below.
    The majority of this great depth of snow, although it thawed a little and snowed a little several times, remained on the ground about a month, and then when it did go away rather suddenly caused big flood conditions, and the Bear Creek bridge was washed away by the raging torrent.
    The business part of Medford was on this side of the creek, and to enable the farmers living in the territory across the stream to come across a cable was rigged up over the torrent. The farmers drove to the other side in their stick carts, consisting of rear wheels of a wagon attached to a wagon pole, and then were pulled across in a big basket attached to the cable.
    Due to the flood conditions in Oregon and California at that time Mr. Bennett says the train service was demoralized in both directions, and because of washouts on Cow Creek Cañon and the Sacramento Valley there was no through train service from January 26 to February 26, and no mail was received from the east and west during that time.
    In relating the above Mr. Bennett recalled that the previous year had been a very dry one and hence food, grain and other prices were very high, but that about that time he purchased a dressed hog for six cents a pound and wheat at about [60] cents a bushel.
Excerpt, Medford Mail Tribune, January 9, 1920, page 6




    I came to Southern Oregon in 1890, bought a small tract of land four miles south of Medford in 1892 and started to grow trees. My trade gradually increased until in 1908 I sold the place and moved to Medford to have a more central point of distribution, to free myself from the orchard work so that I could devote my entire time to the nursery business.
    This was the start of the Eden Valley Nursery, and to use movie terms, the scene was staged in what was known at that time as Eden precinct, commonly mentioned as Eden Valley and near the Eden Valley orchard, the pioneer commercial orchard of the valley, hence the name Eden Valley Nursery.
    From 1908 to 1913 was the heavy commercial planting period, and during five of these years my sales averaged over 100,000 pieces of nursery goods a year, and of course a slump followed the boom and then came the war period with all the trimmings and now we have a bigger and better Medford, surrounded with commercial orchards in full bearing, dozens of packing houses and cold storage plants and now the fruit industry of the valley is recognized as the leading source of revenue and also furnishes the main payroll of the valley.
    I helped pick and pack the first crop from the first commercial orchard planted in the valley.
    I love my work, and it is a constant pleasure to me to watch the trees and plants grow, to plant and transplant nursery stock, and my hobby is to grow flowers and take them to the sick or shut-ins.
    I employ no agents, do no canvassing, have built up my trade from a few hundred trees to the leading nursery business in Southern Oregon on the theory that the average man appreciates a square deal and that a pleased customer will come again and bring another customer, and it takes good goods and service to please customers.
    I live here, make and spend my money here, employ local help, help pay taxes. I had $45.00 when I came here and still have the $45.00, but do not measure a man's success in life by the number of dollars he accumulates--there are other things in life much dearer to me than money.
    I helped circulate the petition that secured the first rural mail route in the valley and have taken an active interest in securing water for irrigation. I was appointed director of the Medford Irrigation District to fill a vacancy and have been twice elected to the same position.
    I claim to carry the most complete line of nursery goods in Southern Oregon and have the goods to back up the claim. I also claim to do the leading nursery business of Southern Oregon and don't think there is anyone that would challenge this claim.
    Every order that leaves the nursery has my personal attention; a strict record is kept of every sale no matter how small. I give free landscape service also. This is a local industry and I am here the year round to help my customers in any way I can. The fruits of over thirty years of experience, study and observation along the line of my chosen occupation is shared with my customers. Agents come and go, sell more or less nursery stock, are here today and gone tomorrow. No service goes with their sales, no responsibility, no support to the community, but I am not knocking. I am kept too busy with my own affairs and have no disposition to knock another man's business to build up mine. It is poor practice.
Medford Mail Tribune, January 2, 1927, page G6

    Few men have served a longer term continuously in business in Medford than N. S. Bennett, owner and manager of the Eden Valley Nursery. To be exact, Bennett engaged in the nursery business on a commercial scale 31 years ago.
    Trees from the Eden Valley Nursery compose many of the large commercial pear orchards of Rogue River Valley, and shrubbery from that nursery adorns hundreds of the better homes of Medford and the valley, as well as the grounds that form the setting of many of our public buildings.
    N. S. Bennett, and the wife, who has been his constant helpmate for over 40 years, arrived in Medford January 7, 1980, coming from near Bonaparte, Iowa, where he was born December 5, 1865 and where he was reared to manhood.
    Bennett tells an interesting story of how they came to be residents of Medford. Dissatisfied with the climate in Iowa, their attention was turned to Oregon. Letters of inquiry relative to conditions in Medford and Eugene were dispatched from the Iowa home. Replies, in printed form of printed pamphlets, were received in each instance. "Eugene made a strong appeal to us," said Mr. Bennett, "but we liked the description of the possibilities for growing all kinds of fruit in the Medford area, and after carefully weighing the claims of each of the two districts, we decided on Medford."
    The fact that Mrs. Bennett also had relatives in Ashland wielded an influence in the selection of their new home in Medford. Dan and Henry Chapman, uncles of Mrs. Bennett, and among the earliest, most beloved and prominent Ashland men, located there several years before the Bennetts thought of coming to Oregon. An aunt, Victoria Chapman Michaelson, also resided in Ashland.
    The pamphlet telling of Medford and Rogue River Valley was mailed to Bennett by D. T. Lawton and father, who were then in the realty business here.
    The Bennetts arrived in Medford in one of the worst snowstorms of the winter 1889-90. The train on which they made the trip out to Sacramento was blockaded several times in the trip over the Rockies and Mr. Bennett recalls that the depth of snow that covered the ground here a day or two following their arrival was deeper than has ever been recorded since.
    "I had $45 in my pocket when we arrived here," says Mr. Bennett. "I lost no time looking for work and finally obtained a job on the Dan Crane place, then owned by G. W. Howard, close to Phoenix. We moved out there, where I worked two years. The third year I rented the place and the same year purchased a 10-acre tract southwest of what is now the Col. Voorhies orchard."
    The ambition Bennett had to grow fruit, and which attracted him to Medford, continued and immediately after purchasing the 10-acre tract he set it out to fruit. He relates that prunes were predominating in the fruit industry at that time, and his young orchard was composed principally of prunes. Later he erected a dryer, which he used in drying his prunes, and later engaged in commercial drying for several of his neighbors.
    It may be interesting to many who are now engaged in the fruit business, which predominates in Rogue River Valley, to know that at the time Bennett engaged in that business, prunes were grown extensively. "They did well here," he says. "But overplanting in many districts soon paralyzed the market and gradually local orchard men turned to pears."
    The pear boom, as Bennett describes it, started in 1906-7. Gradually prune trees were pulled and replaced with pear trees.
    Bennett started a nursery for his own use soon after purchasing his first tract of land, and in 1902 began the business of growing trees for commercial purposes. He remains in possession of a receipt for a sum exceeding $16 which he paid to a man by the name of Carson, who was then fruit inspector for his district, for inspecting the first lot of seedlings for foundation stock for his nursery. "Carson lived in Grants Pass and charged me mileage as well as for the time that elapsed from the hour he left his home until he returned there. He rode up on the train to Medford, where he hired a livery rig and drove out to my place."
    Bennett recalls that the demand for pear and apple trees increased rapidly, which added to his ambition to develop the nursery business. While developing his own nursery he worked at odd times in the Ross nursery, east of town, where he was trained in propagating fruit trees.
    The nursery business expanded so rapidly that in 1908 Bennett sold his 10-acre orchard, moved to Medford and began business on a more extensive scale. He enjoyed a profitable business from 1908 to 1913. During that five-year period his records show that his annual sales exceeded 100,000 pieces of nursery stock, including berry bushes and shrubs. The volume of business continued satisfactorily until the Depression struck in 1929.
    Many of the larger pear orchards of the valley are from stock supplied by the Eden Valley Nursery. The Modoc and Voorhies orchards and many others are of trees from that nursery. The last large commercial orchard set out in the valley, the Henry Cheda tract of 150 acres, planted in 1929, is of trees from the Bennett stock, the owner of which not only supplied the trees but set them out.
    During late years Bennett has devoted more time to landscaping and to growing of shrubbery for that purpose. The work of landscaping the grounds at the First Methodist and Catholic churches and junior high school was performed by Bennett. Landscaping at the magnificent summer homes of Captain Black and Nion Tucker on [the] Rogue River and at hundreds of other homes throughout the valley is his work.
    The result is that today the Eden Valley Nursery is recognized up and down the coast as the leading industry of its kind in Southern Oregon, a recognition acquired only after many years of hard work on the part of its founder.
    "I have always operated on the theory that one satisfied customer brings another, and there have been times when I sacrificed volume to maintain quality," said Bennett in telling of the principle on which he has conducted his business.
    Although an indefatigable worker, Bennett has devoted much time to carrying rays of happiness into the homes of others. Being one of the early members of Medford Lodge No. 1168, B.P.O.E., he was for years chairman of the sick and relief committee of that organization, in which capacity he performed with such marked distinction that in 1920 the lodge voted him a life membership.
    He remains a member of that committee, and there is scarcely a day in the year that he does not visit some person who is ill, leaving a bouquet of flowers or something that will add to the happiness of those who are shut in.
    Bennett has also found time during his busy life to devote some of his energies to public work. During his first years here, when unimproved roads were a handicap to the development of the valley, he contributed much to their improvement. He was one of the circulators of petitions for the first rural mail route established in the valley, Route No. 1, on which Wm. Warner, present postmaster, was the first carrier.
    Bennett has the first receipt issued for a money order after the route was established and Warner was made carrier.
    "A bad stretch of road near my 10-acre tract all but proved a barrier in obtaining the route," recalls Bennett. "But I told the authorities if they would authorize the route I would repair the road. I procured the assistance of some of my neighbors, we hauled gravel and finally made the improvement."
    He was also a member of the first organization of fruitgrowers formed here.
    "Improved highways and our fine school systems are two of the most outstanding improvements made in the valley since I arrived here 43 years ago," says Mr. Bennett.
    Always interested in the growth of trees and shrubs, Bennett says he watched with growing interest the growth of the walnut trees that parallel South Central Avenue in this city and which are now from two to three feet in diameter. They were mere whips when I arrived in Medford and had guards around them to protect them from town cows, which ran at large.
    Incidentally Mr. Bennett recalls that town cows were the bane of the lives of valley farmers during the early days, and wagon boxes which they filled with hay to feed their horses while in town had to be closely guarded.
    "The East Side was a wheat field when we arrived in Medford," says Mr. Bennett. There were only two houses in that part of town and a rail fence paralleled the lane that is now East Main Street.
    "One of the houses was owned by a teamster by the name of Speas. The Speas home stood near the location of the present dwelling of Dr. J. C. Hayes [at 835 East Main]. The other house, occupied by a man by the name of Russ, is now a part of the A. H. Miller home. Russ operated a small gristmill there." [The Alfred H. Miller home was at 1320 East Main; presumably the Russ house was moved from near Bear Creek to that location.]
    Like many men of his generation who have made a success of their chosen work, N. S. Bennett was handicapped by limited schooling. His education was limited to the elementary school near Bonaparte where he was born. "That I could not go on to higher institutions of learning was one of my bitter disappointments," he says. "But I was determined to acquire more education and this I have done through years of home reading and study, which I have continued up to this day."
    Scenic photographs and hunting have been among the hobbies of the subject of this sketch, and pictures taken on hunting trips of kills of deer and various outdoor scenes are among his prized possessions.
    Bennett says that much of his "limited success" is due to his helpmate, who not only gave him valuable assistance during the early years that he was developing his business but who is still a "good soldier" whenever emergency demands that she step into the breach.
    Four children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Bennett: Mrs. Cora Carlson, Oakland, Calif., Miss Ethel of this city and Lester and Agenes, both deceased.
    Closing his interview, Mr. Bennett said: "The climatic conditions and many natural advantages that attracted me from Iowa to Rogue River Valley have never been a disappointment, and I join with thousands of others in acclaiming this a great country."