[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 178 (Thursday, December 3, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2887]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      HONORING DAVE WILSON NURSERY

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. GEORGE RADANOVICH

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, December 3, 2009

  Mr. RADANOVICH. Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend and 
congratulate Dave Wilson Nursery upon being named a ``Legend of 
Agriculture'' by the Ag Hall of Fame. Mr. Wilson was honored on 
Thursday, November 12, 2009 at the twelfth annual Ag Hall of Fame 
Dinner in Turlock, California.
  Mr. Dave Wilson began his career working at Kirkman Nursery, a 
prominent tree nursery. It was at Kirkman Nursery that Mr. Wilson had 
the opportunity to grow and develop Junebudded orchard trees. After 
fourteen years, Mr. Wilson departed from Kirkman Nursery and 
established his own nursery in 1938. During the late 1930s and early 
1940s, he and his wife, Isabel, along with his wife's sister and 
brother-in-law, Pearle and Walter Mann, operated Empire Nursery, a 
garden center located east of Modesto, California. The nursery was 
renamed to Dave Wilson Nursery in the early 1940s. At this time, Mr. 
Wilson's son-in-law, John Wynne, joined the family business.
  Mr. Wilson and Mr. Wynne grew commercial orchard trees in a 
partnership until the company was incorporated in 1957. Mr. Wynne 
became president of the nursery in 1962 and five years later purchased 
the new headquarters for the nursery along the Tuolumne River east of 
Hickman, California, where the headquarters remains today. In the mid 
1960s, the nursery established a sales and distribution facility in 
Hughson, California. In 1966, Dave Wilson Nursery introduced the first 
tree fruit varieties developed by Floyd Zaiger, and the nursery remains 
the primary propagator and exclusive licensor of Mr. Zaiger varieties, 
with annual sales of over a million trees of patented varieties and 
rootstocks. In 1986 the sales and distribution facility was relocated 
to the nursery's growing grounds in Hickman to better facilitate 
management of the operation. In 1979, an office, test orchard and sales 
yard was established in Selma, California, which was later relocated to 
Reedley, California in 1995.
  Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend and congratulate Dave Wilson 
Nursery upon being named as a ``Legends of Agriculture.'' I invite my 
colleagues to join me in wishing Dave Wilson Nursery many years of 
continued success.

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