CALIFORNIA AVOCADO ASSOCIATION 



71 



WORK OF THE CALIFORNIA NURSERYMEN'S BUD SELEC- 

 TION ASSOCIATION. 



L. B. SCOTT, SAN JOSE, CALIF. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 



It may seem somewhat strange that a representative of a co-ordinate asso- 

 ciation interested in the development of the fruit industries of California should 

 appear on the program of another organization to discuss the work and objects 

 of the association he represents. However, as I proceed with my subject I believe 

 you will agree that the California Nurserymen's Bud Selection Association may 

 be of considerable assistance to your avocado association. It is solely with this 

 object in view that I intend to take a few minutes of your time today in briefly 

 outlining the proposed activities of our Association. 



In order to secure the proper historical setting it will be necessary for me 

 to refer very briefly to the investigations which the United States Department of 

 Agriculture has been conducting since 1909 under the direction of Mr. A. D. 

 Shamel on the improvement of citrus fruits through bud selection. While it has 

 long been recognized that bud variations exist, until Mr. Shamel began his very 

 comprehensive investigations with citrus fruits no one had any idea of the fre- 

 quency with which these variations occur, or that by using proper care in the 

 selection of bud wood the possibility of propagating these undesirable variations 

 could be reduced to an almost negligible factor. The results of these investiga- 

 tions have appeared in Department bulletins and are now a matter of permanent 

 record. Prominent citrus growers have stated that Mr. Shamel's investigations 

 have already meant millions of dollars to the California citrus industry. This 

 work has suggested similar lines of investigations which could be carried on with 

 other fruits. Already considerable work has been done by Department investi- 

 gators and by your Association in studying the question of bud variation within 

 some of your standard avocado varieties. Similar work has been done in this 

 state with olives, and to a limited extent with walnuts. In the east the Department 

 of Agriculture has conducted bud selection investigations with apples and peaches 

 in Connecticut, and in co-operation with the Michigan State Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station has for several years carried on detailed studies of bud variation in 

 Northern Spy and Baldwin apples. In Florida and Alabama a considerable 

 amount of performance record work has been done with citrus fruits. The work 

 carried on in different parts of the country has shown that bud variation is a 

 matter of frequent occurrence in all our fruit varieties, and is not confined to any 

 particular class of fruits or to any particular locality. 



A number of prominent deciduous fruit growers and nurserymen have long 

 recognized the fact that there was just as great a need for the careful selection of 

 bud wood in all deciduous varieties, but it was not until sometime last summer 

 that Mr. William T. Kirkman, Jr., of Fresno, conceived the idea of forming an 

 organization which would furnish all the buds used by the different nurserymen 

 who became members of this organization. With this plan in mind he conferred 

 with other leading nurserymen and fruit growers in the state, and later with state 

 and federal investigators. As a result of these various conferences the present 

 organization known as the California Nurserymen's Bud Selection Association 

 has been perfected. The primary purpose of the organization is to furnish buds 

 of the leading standard fruit varieties grown in this state to the different commercial 



