246 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



VARIABILITY OF MARSH SEEDLESS VARIETY. 



In one of the first groves of Marsh Seedless grapefruit observed by the 

 writer in southern California it was found that out of a total of 500 

 trees, 123 habitually produced fruit containing from 50 to 100 seeds 

 each. In some cases this heavily seeded characteristic was found to be 

 correlated with a rough, thick rind and an undesirable shape of fruit. 

 This type has since been proven to have originated from bud mutations. 

 It has been unintentionally propagated through the absence of any care- 

 ful system of bud selection based on individual tree performance 



Fig. 78. — Side view of coarse, thick-skinned type of Marsh Seedless 

 grapefruit. Reduced. (Original.) 



records. To illustrate the importance of this condition, it can be said 

 that the owner of the grove referred to above has lost thousands of 

 dollars in the past through the unwelcome presence of this poor type of 

 trees. Fortunately, the trees belonging to this poor type are light 

 bearers of fruit, as a rule, so that the loss resulting from the mixture of 

 an inferior type of fruit has been less than otherwise would have been 

 the case. 



The important types of Marsh Seedless trees and fruit found so far 

 in our performance record work are as follows : 



1. Standard. The trees of this type produce a large and regular 

 crop. The fruit has characteristically a slightly flattened shape. The 

 ripe fruit representative samples of which are shown in Figs. 76 and 77 

 has a very smooth, satin-like skin of ivory white color, thin rind and 

 from none to ten seeds each, being commercially seedless. The rag is 



