10 
Citrus and Tropical Fruit Culture 
known to be all right usually felt perfectly safe in 
taking budwood later, either from young orchards 
planted from his former selection or even from stock 
in the nursery row. 
As time went on and citrus fruits attained larger 
prominence commercially it was seen that the yield 
was not what it should be. Growers found that 
there was always a certain percentage of trees that 
failed to produce a normal crop, or that produced 
rough inferior fruit, thus cutting down their average 
on the whole orchard both in quantity and quality. 
For a number of years this condition was attributed 
to either poor nursery stock, improper irrigation, cul- 
tivation or fertilization ; but after a more careful in- 
vestigation it was learned that there were certain 
trees in nearly every orchard that produced heavy 
crops of good quality fruit year after year, while 
others always bore light crops and still others that 
produced fruit of an inferior quality. Through the as- 
sistance of the Department of Agriculture a thorough 
investigation of the causes for this condition was 
made which showed that not only the Washington 
Navels, but all varieties of citrus fruits sported "off 
types" of inferior quality fruit and that often trees 
producing perfect fruit might have one limb or 
branch that produced either a poor quality of fruit or 
very little. This condition would continue year after 
year so that bud wood taken from that particular 
branch would produce fruit of like quality and quan- 
tity. Often these sport branches varied in growth and 
foliage. Whatever the variation, whether in fruit or 
foliage, buds taken from such wood are likely to pro- 
duce trees of likely quality. This bud variation is 
particularly noticeable in Washington Navels and 
Valencia Late oranges and Eureka lemons, although 
it no doubt exists to a certain extent in all varieties 
of citrus fruit. Mr. A. D. Shamel, of the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, in charge of fruit improvement 
investigations since 1909, says: "It may manifest it- 
self in the habit of growth of the trees or their method 
of branching, the size, form, texture or the color of 
the foliage, or the form, color, texture, abundance, or 
scarcity of the fruit. Occasionally one tree grown 
from a single bud will develop several distinct strains 
of fruit. Frequently a single fruit or a branch bear- 
ing several fruits will be found on a tree having 
characteristics distinct from the fiuit of the typical 
strain borne by the tree as a whole. Minor varia- 
tions on fruit characteristics are very frequent oc- 
currences." 
From the knowlege thus gained in these investiga- 
tions it is easy to see why nurserymen were continual- 
ly receiving complaints about shy bearing trees and 
off types of fruit. To the casual observer it might 
appear strange that the deterioration was not greater, 
but it must be borne in mind that not all variations 
are downward or to inferior types. The investigations 
have not recorded the variations which showed im- 
provement over the parent type and possibly it is not 
as great as the downward. In all these investigations 
the idea has been to eliminate the poorer strains and 
show best how to avoid future deteriorations, hence 
it is the duty of the nurserymen to select and propa- 
gate from those variations that give promise of being 
improvements over original types. The Thomson 
Improved, Golden Nugget and Buckeye Navels and 
Original Washington Navel tree in Riverside 
Navelencia are all sports or variations from the 
Washington Navel that gave promise of being im- 
proved in some particular over the original type. So 
in all varieties of citrus fruit, the perfect strains of 
today show a decided improvement over the original 
due to the nurseryman's effort to produce better and 
more perfect types of fruit, notwithstanding the fact 
that in the past they have been working more or less 
in the dark with reference to these bud variations. 
In recent years it has been the practice to select buds 
from those orchards that produced good crops of fruit 
as a whole and where there were no trees of the off 
or so-called Australian type ; or, if there were any,, to 
so mark them, so as to escape their use for purposes 
of propagation. In this way it was considered quite 
safe to take bud wood from such orchards even 
