CALIFORNIA AVOCADO ASSOCIATION 



17 



to us at that time. This man is the author of a book which is on our tables — 

 The Garden Beautiful in California. When he comes to revise that book I 

 hope he will include a chapter on the avocado tree. I don't think anyone has 

 yet done justice to the beauty of the avocado tree. We have heard a great 

 deal said about the fruits and about the merits of the different varieties. Mr. 

 Spinks burned in upon us the desirability of getting the tree first, the right kind 

 of a tree, a strong, sturdy, resistant tree, a well shaped tree, a tree that will pro- 

 duce results. He has said to us in our meetings that the tree is more important 

 than the fruit. But nobody within my hearing has yet raised his voice in praise 

 of the beauty of the avocado tree. We sometimes say it is like the magnolia, 

 and there is something attractive about the magnolia. It is beautiful in a formal 

 way, stately and formal, but the avocado with its rich evergreen leafage and its 

 variety in shape, form and development has something intimate and responsive 

 about it — it becomes friendly to those of us who work with it. I am reminded 

 of those lines of Joyce Kilmer on trees. You will remember he wrote: 



I think that I shall never see 

 A poem as lovely as a tree — 



A tree whose hungry mouth is prest 

 Against the earth's sweet flowing breast; 



A tree that looks at God all day 

 And lifts her leafy arms to pray; 



A tree that may in summer wear 

 A nest of robins in her hair; 



Upon whose bosom snow has Iain; 

 Who intimately lives with rain. 



Poems are made by fools like me, 

 But only God can make a tree. 



THIRTY YEARS' OBSERVATION OF TROPICAL FRUITS 



ERNEST BRAUNTON 



Mr. Chairman^ Ladies and Gentlemen: 



Inasmuch as we have gathered at one of California's famous tourist hotels, 

 I cannot help but hand along a little hotel joke I heard a day or two ago. It is 

 said that in New York hotels, in every room, near the door where the departing 

 guest may plainly read, there is a little sign as follows: "Have you left any- 

 thing?" It is said that in the hotels in Southern California, it reads: "Have 

 you anything left?" 



In recounting or canvassing the experience of a third of a century among 

 tropical fruits in Southern California, I do not recall anything particularly 

 humorous or amusing. Yet they say, at the close of a bzuiquet we should have 

 all of jollity and none of gravity. However, a few weeks ago, while riding 

 on a street car, I had with me a very beautiful cone of the Norfolk Island Pine, 

 which I had picked up at Santa Barbara a few days before. The gentleman 



