THE ALMOND 343 



blossoms are likely to be destroyed by heavy 

 rainstorms or frost. A second minor defect is 

 that many of the varieties of almond do not bear 

 well unless they are cross-fertilized with pollen 

 from other varieties. 



The latter defect is obviously one that requires 

 only reasonable intelligence in the planting of 

 different varieties in contiguous rows, so that 

 cross-fertilization may readily take place, or the 

 production of varieties with perfect blossoms. 

 To overcome the defects due to too early bloom- 

 ing is a somewhat more difficult matter. 



Fortunately, however, there is a rather wide 

 range of variation among different kinds of 

 almonds as to time of blooming. It follows that 

 there should be no great difficulty in producing, 

 by selective breeding, a variety that combines 

 desirable qualities of nut production with the 

 habit of late blooming. The difficulty has been 

 that until recently orchardists have not recog- 

 nized the possibility of thus segregating and 

 recombining characters, and they have "trusted 

 to luck" in setting out their almond orchards, 

 so in a large number of cases the profitless trees 

 were removed or re grafted to prunes. 



Latterly, the California orchardists have 

 learned that there are two or three varieties that 

 may be depended on, notably the Nonpareil and 



