R. M. Teague Nurseries, San Dimas, Cal. 
any particular type of orange was considered to be 
wasting his time. Just so the fruit was edible was 
all that was considered necessary. About the time the 
importance of the Washington Navel orange became 
established, there was also introduced into the state 
a type of Navel orange known as the Australian 
Navel, a variety or type somewhat similar, but in 
every way inferior, to the Washington Navel, its 
learned to avoid selecting budwood where they was 
any danger of getting the Australian type. 
In spite of care, however, the nurserymen were 
still receiving complaints from planters that a certain 
percentage of so-called Australian Navels showed up 
in the stock purchased from them, and on examina- 
tion it was found that certain trees, while not having 
all the traits of the Australian type, were decidedly 
Precocious rows of one-year-old Washington Navels, showing blooming and jruiting qualities. 
chief objection being that the tree was a shy bearer. 
Both types were seedless, or nearly so, and the only 
method of reproduction was by budding. 
The Washington Navel being so much superior to 
the old seedling varieties, the demand for trees stimu- 
lated the growing of citrus nursery stock, which up to 
that time had been mostly supplied by Florida nurs- 
erymen. Later many of the bearing seedling orchards 
were budded over to Navels, some of these seedling 
trees being 25 or 30 years of age. The demand for 
budwood taxed the young Navel orchards to the limit 
with the result that budwood was often taken from 
the Australian Navels, either through ignorance or 
indifference on the part of the person gathering buds. 
In this way the earlier orchards planted became badly 
mixed, which necessitated re-budding or top working 
over a good many trees, hence the nurserymen soon 
of an inferior quality, which lead to the conclusion 
that possibly some buds were from sucker wood or 
water sprouts and that this caused the trees to be of 
inferior quality from the parent tree, for it was noted 
that these suckers or water sprouts, if allowed to ma- 
ture in the tree, would always produce a rough, in- 
ferior fruit the first year or two they bore, although 
it usually improved as the growth advanced and be- 
came less vigorous. 
This was no doubt the cause of the trouble, for it 
was noticed that the nurseryman, who was careful in 
the selection of buds, had less complaint about bad 
trees, although none escaped completely. No one at 
that time attributed the trouble to anything but care- 
less selection of bud wood, either from sucker wood 
or trees of the Australian type, hence the nurseryman 
who personally selected his budwood from trees 
