THE APPROVED TYPE OF MARSH GRAPEFRUIT 
It is a flattened fruit with a smooth, fairly thin skin, no seeds and an abundance of juice. 
It originated under unknown circumstances in Florida a generation ago, and quickly 
became the most popular variety in America. 
have agreed to produce a grapefruit like the above, and no other. 
(Fig. 20.) 
the U. S. Department of Agriculture. 
or no Florida grapefruit is being 
shipped. 
In the past, California grapefruit has 
usually been picked in winter, and has 
been considered inferior to the Florida 
fruit. It is now believed that this 
inferiority is due to premature picking: 
that the fruit does not really ripen 
until about May. The Grapefruit Club 
will therefore adopt a “‘standard of 
maturity” just as the orange growers 
have done. No orange may be shipped 
unless it contains eight parts of soluble 
solids (mostly sugar) to one part of 
acid, and the Interstate Commerce 
Commission prosecutes any grower who 
ships his fruit before it is legally ripe. 
The Florida standard for grapefruit is 
seven parts solid to one of acid; this 
may be modified in California. 
The Grapefruit Club embraces the 
growers of 60% of all the grapefruit 
All the California commercial growers 
Photograph from 
produced by California, all of them 
members of the California Fruit Growers’ 
Exchange. They have decided not only 
to market their fruit according to 
standard, but to eliminate from their 
groves all varieties except the Marsh, 
and further to eliminate all Marsh 
except one approved type. Due to 
bud variation and careless propagation 
of inferior variants, there are now a 
number of types of Marsh grown in 
California: the standard is a smooth, 
flattened, juicy fruit, another is rough 
skinned, a third corrugated, a fourth 
full of seeds. The members are going 
over their groves, eliminating all trees 
that do not bear standard fruit, and 
topworking them or replacing them with 
new trees. 
The two largest growers of grapefruit 
in California are not members of the 
Exchange and therefore not members of 
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