Rhodes Fruit Farms

Rhodes Fruit Farms, founded by Cecil John Rhodes in 1902, exists today as Boschendal The Estate, one of the oldest wine estates in South Africa.

Mining magnate, politician and empire-builder Cecil John Rhodes founded Rhodes Fruit Farms in South Africa in 1902, shortly before his death. Much of his activity centred on the farm Boschendal, which has given its name to the current Boschendal Estate. To this day it is a major source of employment for the local community.

Close to Cape Town, between Stellenbosch, [Pniel], Franschhoek and Paarl, Boschendal stretches between the foot of the Groot Drakenstein mountains to the Simonsberg mountains, with views of the mountain, vineyards and valley below. On 2,240 hectares (5,500 acres) there is a unique combination of vineyards, orchards, nature reserves, mountain corridors and rivers. The historic homesteads on the Estate, part of the Cape Dutch heritage, are Boschendal Manor House, Goede Hoop, Rhone, Nieuwedorp, Old Bethlehem, Champagne and the Cecil John Rhodes Cottage.

In the late nineteenth century, it was tragedy which gave birth to opportunity. The Western Cape wine farms had been devastated by a phylloxera epidemic in the 1880s & 1890s. Diseased vineyards were ploughed up and gradually replanted with vines grafted onto resistant American rootstock. In the meantime, farmers needed alternative forms of agriculture and the lucrative fruit industry in California provided a suitable model for the Cape. Pioneering work was done by fruit farmers in Wellington and the Hex River Valley. In 1892, shipping magnate Percy Molteno developed and introduced refrigerated cargo space on Union-Castle shipping lines, between the Cape and the largest consumer markets in Europe, which revolutionised the industry and made the export of fresh fruit an attractive proposition.

Harry Pickstone, an Englishman who had experience growing fruit in California, landed in the Cape in 1892. He convinced Rhodes that a commercial nursery was needed to propagate new varieties of fruit trees for the industry. Rhodes financed his first venture, the Pioneer Fruit Growing Company.

After retiring from politics in 1896 Rhodes decided to invest further in fruit farming. Pickstone advised him to buy old wine farms in the Groot Drakenstein, Wellington and Stellenbosch areas.

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