Shamel: Bud Variation 83 
The reason for this condition is easily 
found upon investigation. Of the 
eleven common types of the navel 
orange in California, the most undesir- 
able ones from the standpoint of fruit 
production are those showing the great- 
est vigor of growth. The trees of these 
types throw unusually large numbers of 
suckers, which have been, until recently, 
highly prized for budwood. Naturally, 
under the existing methods of propaga- 
tion, a large proportion of budwood is 
cut from these vigorous vegetative 
trees and a comparatively small propor- 
tion of budwood from the trees of the 
productive and desirable types. 
Another way of explaining the running 
out of fruit varieties by reason of the 
lack of intelligent bud selection in 
propagation, as in the case of the 
Washington Navel orange, is the diffi- 
culty of propagators in securing bud- 
wood from the best and most productive 
trees. There is no question but that it 
is difficult to secure large supplies of 
non-bearing budwood from the _ best 
trees, particularly the sucker growth, 
because such trees usually produce but 
little sucker wood. On the other hand, 
by the use of fruit-bearing budwood 
instead of sucker wood for propagation, 
there is no difficulty in securing adequate 
supplies of budwood from the best trees. 
In fact, if fruit wood is used for propaga- 
tion instead of sucker wood, one can 
secure more budwood from good trees 
than from poor ones. 
MANY DRONE TREES 
In our performance record plots, 
located in some of the best navel orange 
groves in Southern California, we have 
found that about 25% of the trees are 
drones, that is, are unproductive and 
undesirable from all commercial stand- 
points. Our records show that if these 
trees had been replaced by the average 
of the remaining 75% from 1910 to 1914, 
inclusive, these orchards would have 
produced about $100 per acre more than 
was actually the case. These figures 
are from the actual figures of preduction 
and from the prices actually realized 
for the fruit from these orchards in 
eastern markets. One of our coopera- 
tors, who has kept an individual tree 
record for the past four years on a large 
acreage of navel oranges, tells us that 
his figures show a loss of about $100 per 
acre each year as a result of the presence 
in his orchard of drone trees. In view 
of the close agreement of our experi- 
mental and cooperative commercial 
records, I think we can safely conclude 
that in our best orchards the loss from 
trees of poor types has been about $100 
per acre annually. Of course, in poorer 
orchards, especially those having a 
notorious mixture of types of trees, 
the loss has probably been much 
greater. How much disappointment, 
loss of opportunity, and heartache have 
been the result of the past system of 
propagation of our navel orange and 
other fruits no one can estimate. We 
have made tree census records in certain 
navel orange groves which show more 
than 70% of inferior type trees. These 
orchards have blasted the hopes and 
opportunities for success of many men 
and are blights upon the fair reputation 
of our citrus industry. 
This state of affairs need no longer 
exist, for we now know that many, if 
not all, of these inferior trees in exist- 
ing orchards can be replaced with 
superior ones, and that the most pro- 
ductive and valuable type of Washing- 
ton Navel orange can be isolated by bud 
selection based on performance records, 
so that this variety, perhaps the most 
important and valuable in all horti- 
culture, can be conserved and improved, 
instead of being allowed to continue 
its deterioration until it altogether 
“runs out.” 
ACCURATE RECORDS NEEDED 
The first essential to progress is 
individual tree records to give definite 
and reliable information as to the per- 
formance and behavior of fruiting 
trees. Individual tree performance 
records can be compared with the 
Babcock test for dairy cows, trap nests 
for laying fowls, centgener tests of 
strains of corn or other grains, and other 
methods for securing useful and valuable 
knowledge of individual animal or 
plant behavior. The importance and 
value of individual tree records can only 
be fully appreciated upon actual use 
