CALIFORNIA AVOCADO ASSOCIATION 



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of you, for example, remember the Murrieta varieties — the green and purple, the 

 latter now being called Colorado. Ten years ago they were propagated and 

 planted by the hundreds, and I doubt that one of the trees is living today, except 

 some that were top worked. The parent trees were healthy enough, although 

 growing under rather adverse conditions, and up to the present day we have no 

 better fruits than the Murrieta and Colorado. For some unknown reason they 

 could not be made to grov/ and keep growing by any means known to horticultural 

 science. The buds started all right in many cases, but after a year or two at 

 most of miserable existence, finally died, having survived just long enough to fool 

 both nurseryman and orchardist. 



And here is the point I am trying to make clear — many varieties have this 

 tendency in greater or lesser degree, while some others have it not at all; hence 

 when a new fruit has been discovered equal or superior to those we already have, 

 it does not follow necessarily that we have a valuable new variety ; it has still to 

 be tested as a tree by budding. The tree it grows on may look strong and healthy, 

 but that proves nothing at all. All seedling trees grow strong and healthy, with 

 favorable conditions, so far as I know, but a bud taken from a strong tree and 

 transplanted to another tree may make a droopy, sickly growth, or may not grow 

 at all. We do not know why. There seems to be a lack of affinity between many 

 of the varieties. An interesting theory is that root system and bud are not matched 

 as to rapidity of growth, it being a known fact that some varieties grow more 

 rapidly than others. Some have thought that thick-skins should be budded on 

 thick-skin roots and thin-skins on thin-skin roots, the idea being that the two 

 families are too distanUy related to get along well together. At present thin-skin 

 root stock is used almost exclusively by nurserymen because of its hardiness, 

 whereas the buds are nearly all taken from the large fruiting, thick-skin varieties. 



I doubt that either of these theories correctly and completely explains the phe- 

 nomenon of poor bud growth, but each furnishes an interesting working hypothesis 

 for the experimenter. 



We have noted a most interesting thing in our own top-worked orchard of 

 some two hundred ten year old trees, formerly Harmans, which were budded 

 three years ago to a strong growing variety and nearly all of which now have 

 very satisfactory new tops. About ten of these trees were first budded to the 

 Murrieta variety, and half of that number now have rather poor tops of that kind. 

 In the others we believed the buds to be all dead, so worked the trees over again, 

 this time to the strong growing kind of which the main orchard is composed. It 

 happened that in each of three or four of these trees a single Murrieta bud was 

 still living; and, strange to say, these braced up and came right along with the 

 rest of the top. They seemed to need the help of the strong growing variety to 

 pull them along and are today the only satisfactory Murrieta buds we have on the 

 place. I should have expected it to work exactly the opposite way — that is to 

 say, I should have expected the strong buds to crowd the weak ones out, all of 

 which proves to be a fact that which has long been suspected, to-wit: my judgment 

 in such matters is not infallible. 



I am convinced that much of the limber, droopy growth noted in many varie- 

 ties is due to root cutting when the young trees are balled and moved. I have an 

 orchard of some two hundred Lindas which were moved into place three years 

 ago, and some fifty others of the same age which were not moved but left to grow 

 where they were originally budded. The ones not moved have made satisfactory 

 growth, standing upright and strong while the ones moved into the orchard were 

 very unsatisfactory, notwithstanding we took very large balls of dirt with each of 



