A VARIATION OF THE MARSH GRAPEFRUIT 
Like all other citrus fruits, the grapefruit is much subject to bud variation. 
On a good Marsh 
tree, a single limb will sometimes appear bearing rough, dry, pithy fruits like the one shown 
above. If the grower is not watching his trees carefully, he may propagate from this limb 
and then have a number of entire trees bearing the same worthless type of fruit. 
This is 
exactly what has happened to a considerable extent in the California citrus groves; the 
growers are now eliminating all inferior bud variations, including the one shown above, 
and retaining only approved types, taking care to propagate from the most productive 
trees of these. 
the Grapefruit Club. They worked 
over their groves four years ago, 
eliminating all but the best type of 
Marsh; it was their success, indeed, 
that moved the Grapefruit Club to 
organize and act. The result will be 
that the whole California grapefruit 
industry is on a common basis, uniting 
on a single strain of a single variety, 
keeping this variety up to the mark by 
maintaining a performance record for 
every tree and eliminating those that 
show undesirable variation. In this 
effort they have the coéperation of the 
U. S. Department of Agriculture, and 
Photograph from the U. S. Department of Agriculture. 
(Fig. 21.) 
the greater part of the grapefruit buds 
propagated during the last five years 
have been pedigree buds furnished by 
the Department, which in the seven 
years of its bud selection work in 
California has distributed more than 
2,000,000 buds of all kinds to citrus 
growers—all these buds being furnished 
gratis by owners of groves who were 
aiding the Department in its investiga- 
tions.” 
It has long been evident that the 
future of agriculture in the United 
States depends on organized codpera- 
tion of small landholders. The first 
2 See “Bud Variation,” by A. D. Shamel, JouURNAL oF Herepity, Vol. vii, No. 2, pp. 82-87» 
February, 1916. 
526 
