CALIFORNIA AVOCADO ASSOCIATION 



88 



ting of the fruit. Neither will size of fruit suffice as sizes also vary mark- 

 edly on the same tree. It seems to me that the most logical basis for a 

 workable standard is the normal date or season for maturity. Varieties 

 have already been classified according to season, the Fuerte from January 

 to May. the Sharpless from October to January, the Puebla from Decem- 

 ber to February, and so on. Why can not the Committee on Classification 

 and Registration of varieties be authorized by the Directors to submit 

 recommendations as to the earliest date at which the fruit of a commercial 

 variety can be termed properly mature? The Directors can then draw up 

 an agreement according to which the members of the Association promise 

 not to pick and ship the fruit of any commercial variety before the maturity 

 date specified for that variety. The containers for the fruit could then be 

 plainly labeled. "Mature Avocados. Guaranteed by the California Avo- 

 cado Association.*' It was some such arrangement as this and not an iron- 

 clad contract by which the Tulare County Protective Association secured 

 excellent results in preventing the shipping of immature oranges. The mem- 

 bers made it decidedly unpleasant for growers who did not make the agree- 

 ment or who failed to live up to it when made. This whole subject, how- 

 ever, of the proper maturity of avocados is one which needs thorough inves- 

 tigation and it is to be hoped that such an investigation can be carried out 

 by the Association, the State Experiment Station, or by the United States 

 Department of Agriculture. 



EARLY INTRODUCTION OF THE AVOCADO INTO 

 CALIFORNIA 



By Juan Murrieta of Los Angeles 



I have been asked by some members of the California Avocado Asso- 

 ciation to make a report of my attempt to introduce the aguacate into 

 Southern California, and to do so I have to call upon my memory for the 

 facts, as I made no written record at the time. Mr. J. C. Harvey, a gen- 

 tleman who has travelled much, first called my attention to the tree and he 

 gave me an aguacate seedling, which I planted on my place at College St. 

 in 1 89 L This produced a small dark fruit of delicious nutty flavor, and 

 a person that tasted this small fruit who had a great deal of knowledge in 

 aguacates, by having been in Mexico, claimed that the nutty flavor in this 

 fruit was a flavor not found in any of the paguas from Mexico, and he 

 considered this fruit about the best aguacate. I think Mr. Harvey ob- 

 tained the seed of this tree from Mexico and at the end of seven or eight 

 years this tree died, but the new trees from seed of the old tree were left 

 at College St., when I sold the place. Mr. Harvey had aguacates and 

 paguas trees, these being the distinguishing Mexican names between the thin 

 skinned and thick skinned varieties. 



Mr. Buddington of Alpine St. had one tree and Mr. Miller of Holly- 

 wood another one. I became much interested in this fruit and Mr. Harvey 

 reserved a few he had for his own use. I determined to look elsewhere and 

 learned from the Wells Fargo Agent here that they had an agent in At- 

 lixco, Mexico. I wrote then and very fortunately in this way opened cor- 

 respondence with a very intelligent gentleman, Mr. Fuentes. In January, 



