In 1899 it was reported that Albert Etter, with the help of the University of California, was establishing a private experimental orchard near
Briceland. Etter started with 62 varieties in 1898 and received several hundred more varieties in 1899. Years later Etter wrote about apple breeding at Ettersberg in the Pacific Rural Press (1922) He said that "the anniversary of my arrival here to begin operations was afterward made National Apple Day—the 17th of October." The Pacific Rural Press reported that he had 10,000 varieties of apples. He started with almost 600 apple varieties. These were gathered from America and Europe, with the help of
Charles Howard Shinn, when he was Inspector of California Experiment Stations, between 1890 and 1901. In 1907 and 1909 a number of Etter's apple varieties were offered in the annual distribution of seeds and plants from the University of California. In 1919 it was reported that he had hybridized the native California crabapple with the Oregon crabapple and had created a fruit one inch in diameter with a brilliant color. In 1924, the Livermore Journal reported that he was about to introduce 75 different apple varieties. In the late 1920s, Etter shifted his attention to apple breeding, using
scion wood gleaned from a number of sources including the University of California. He felt that the west coast climate called for new kinds of apples, and he began experimenting with wide crosses, especially between apples and
crabapples. Although many of his apple strains have been lost, those that survive include
Pink Pearl, the best-known of his unusual series of some two dozen pink- and red-fleshed cultivars based on a European apple called
Surprise (itself probably a descendant of
Malus niedzwetskyana). Some eastern and midwestern breeders, including
Liberty Hyde Bailey and
Charles Downing had already made some experiments with Surprise and been unhappy with the results, but Etter found that it worked better as part of a west-coast breeding program. By 1928, Etter was far enough along in his breeding experiments to publish a preliminary report in the
Pacific Rural Press, where he wrote about two of his pink-fleshed cultivars, the Redflesh Winter
Banana and a nameless
seedling that, by its description, might have been Pink Pearl. Subsequently, the midwestern breeder
Niels Ebbesen Hansen worked on breeding red-fleshed apples and crabapples, expressing disappointment when he found that Etter had beaten him to the punch. Although not all of Etter's Surprise descendants were successful, the best of them shared a pronounced aromatic quality that appears to be linked to the
anthocyanin pigmentation that gives the flesh its distinctive pinkish and reddish tones. In 1940, Etter began a partnership with George Roeding Jr., the owner of the
California Nursery Company in Niles (now a district of
Fremont, California). Their goal was to patent and market Etter's best apple varieties. The California Nursery Company introduced six Etter varieties in its 1944 catalog – Pink Pearl and five apples with regular non-pigmented flesh (Alaska, All Gold, Humboldt Crab, Jonwin, and Wickson). A seventh apple,
Crimson Gold, was introduced in the 1947 catalog. The 1970 catalog carried only five varieties of Etter's apples: Alaska, Etter's Gold, Jonwin, Pink Pearl, and Wickson. A flyer with "Distinctive New Recipes...for the Apples of Albert Etter" was provided in the 1945 catalog. Recipes were by Robert Stoney Mayock who was a winemaker (Los Amigos Vineyards in Irvington), amateur chef, gourmet, and food columnist.
Apple varieties • Alaska (a white apple, originally Bedfordshire Junior; U.S. patent #699, June 18, 1946) •
Crimson Gold (originally Little Rosybloom) • Etter's Gold (originally Allgold; U.S. patent #659, April 28, 1945) • Hoover Redflesh • Humboldt (originally Jumbo Transcendent; U.S. patent #658, June 5, 1945) • Jonwin (U.S. patent #710, Sept. 17, 1946) • Katharine (named for Etter's wife) •
Pink Pearl (U.S. patent #723, June 23, 1944) • Redflesh Spizenberg • Redflesh Winter Banana • Waltana (named for Etter's brother Walter and his wife) • Wickson crabapple (named for
Edward J. Wickson; U.S. patent #724, March 4, 1947) ==Other plant breeding==