THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 21 



others, such as the Feijoa, which ought to supplant certain of our 

 present fruits because the former can ])e produced more cheaply and 

 l)etter. 



It will 1)0 the puri)ose of this paper, Ihen. not to discuss the i)robh'ms 

 of growing the tropical fruits nor of marketing them, nor the introduc- 

 tion of new kinds more or less unknown now popularly, but simply to 

 point out the few^ fruits which, in my estimation, will be a commercial 

 success in this State; and to urge a greater activity in this industry. 



There are two general types of tropical fruits — those that grow only 

 in humid and warm lowlands and those that grow in the drier and cooler 

 uplands of the southern countries. Because of the dryness of our 

 atmosphere it is manifestly unreasonable to even attempt to grow here, 

 commercially, such fruits of the first class as bananas, pineapples, 

 papayas and certain sapotes. But of the second class there are several 

 fruits which not only can be, but have been, grown successfully on a 

 commercial scale — as successfully, in fact, as in the tropics. We shall 

 confine our attention, therefore, to these latter and especially to those 

 which give definite promise of being commercially important in our 

 horticulture. 



THE AVOCADO. 



The avocado has come to stay, having already shown its adaptability 

 to our climate and soils. Avocadoes are a necessary part of the Mexi- 

 can's diet, just as butter is of ours, and it will be some day a regular 

 part of ours, also. The problems of making this fruit a commercial 

 success are several. First, there is the problem of determining what 

 are the best varieties for this country, both from the standpoint of grow- 

 ing the fruit and of shipping it to market. This is being solved by wide 

 trial and general experimenting. 



A second problem lies in the securing of good trees to start with, even 

 granting that we have decided upon the variety we intend to plant. 

 Nursery trees cost too much and there are too many amateur and inex- 

 perienced and irresponsible individuals selling them. Growers should 

 know that very much depends upon the quality and kind of bud used 

 by the propagator, and they should be careful to buy only from one who 

 has surely used good buds and good seedlings to put the buds into. We 

 need a few good responsible nurserymen to propagate many first class 

 avocado trees, which will have the name and reputation of an upright 

 firm behind them ; and they must offer these at a low price to increase 

 the planting and to discourage the small and irresponsible propagator. 



There is a third, and surely the largest, problem in the selling of the 

 fruit and increasing the consumption. On the solving of this problem 

 hangs the future of the avocado industry in California. The fruit is a 

 luxury at present — and an exceedingly costly one at that — while it 

 should be a commodity within the financial reach of the masses. Too 

 much profit is desired by the grower at the outset and in his short- 

 sighted greediness he is strangling the industry before it gets a fair 

 establishment. Good avocadoes can be produced and sold at profit at 

 5 to 15 cents each, depending on the size of fruit and season of year, 

 whereas now they are offered at 25 to 75 cents each. In 1912 I saw a 

 shipment of less than 3,000 fine avocadoes enter San Francisco ; because 



