[1] He got a one-year option to purchase 6,000 acres (2,400 ha) of undesirable land from the Bullard Company in what is now northwest Fresno, between the city center and the San Joaquin River.
[1] Planting the figs required blasting holes with dynamite through a top layer of hardpan to reach the underlying soil.
[2] The figs came out of an adjacent nursery stocked in part with cuttings obtained from Markarian, and landowners were permitted to choose among different varieties.
That same year, Forkner and local businessman Wylie M. Giffen subdivided the section of land nearest to Fresno into smaller one-acre and half-acre plots.
The Forkner-Giffen section was renamed Old Fig Garden, and it survives today as a census-designated place entirely surrounded by the city of Fresno.