University of Virginia Library

ROSCOE CONKLIN WERTZ

Roscoe Conklin Wertz, the eldest son of Kyles Griffin
and Lutie J. (Poage) Wertz, was born June 7th,
1880, near Poages Mill, in Roanoke County. When a
boy, he attended the
country schools and the
Botetourt Normal College,
at Daleville, Virginia;
also taking a
training course at the
Virginia Polytechnic
Institute in Crop Pest
Commission Work, after
which he was appointed
State Inspector
of Virginia, since which
time he has been looking
after the orchards
and nursery work of the
State, appointing inspectors
and doing all
in his power to rid the
valuable orchards of
Virginia of the various
pests with which they have been afflicted for many
years.

Besides his work as a state officer, he has had
charge of the Wertz plantation and apple orchards for
eighteen years, or since the death of his father in
1893. On this plantation are 1,800 apple trees composed
largely of pippins and other leading commercial
varieties. A few of these trees were planted before
the marriage of Kyles Griffin Wertz, his father,
and the orchard has grown from a few trees
planted prior to 1879, when he was married, to one of
the largest producing commercial orchards in the
county. He kept up the planting of trees every year
until his death. This is one of the oldest orchards on
Back Creek, and on the plantation and situated near the
family residence are a number of trees over one hundred
years old, having been planted by Levi Hays, one
of the first settlers of the Back Creek Section.

The Wertz family originally came from