18 



ANNUAL REPORT 1920 AND 1921 



sitting next to me said, "Excuse me, sir, but is that an alligator pear?" Had 

 I not valued the cone for its herbaria worth, I should have presented it to him 

 with the assurance that it was in just as good condition to eat that day as at any 

 future time. 



In looking back over thirty-tliree years in which I have been engaged in 

 horticulture in Southern California, the one striking point that presents itself with 

 regard to the avocado is that we have not had an earlier and more just appre- 

 ciation of the value of that particular fruit, for we have had them with us for 

 more than three-fourths of a century. Yet it has remained for the last few 

 years to bring a true appreciation of their unrivalled value as a food. 



Going back to the time when I first came here in 1887, I remember that 

 then the tropical fruit trees of Southern California were in greater proportion 

 to the residents than they are at the present time. Almost every garden among 

 the old settlers had an avocado or two of the seedling Mexican type, and trees 

 of cherimoya and sapote. I remember in those days going up and down San 

 Pedro Street, where now all are business houses, and finding in the gardens there, 

 avocados, cherimoyas and sapotes, all since chopped away because of lack of 

 appreciation. There were points in Hollywood, in San Gabriel Valley and 

 along the foothills where avocados were grown in considerable quantity. They 

 were very poor fruits, large of seed and sparse of flesh, and for that reason very 

 little attempt was made to select anything worthy of commercial growing, and 

 the avocado, excellent in flavor though it was, was lost sight of. Yet twenty 

 years ago they were sufficiently appreciated to find a market in Los Angeles for 

 the few produced. In 1894 the plant firm I was with, Lyon and Cobbe, was 

 asked by Lewis Bradbury to obtain as memy seedling trees as we could find 

 and I am wondering if the original Spinks tree was not among the lot I collected. 



I well remember on the 1 8th of September, 1901, now more than nineteen 

 years ago, standing on a street corner in Tustin, under the shade of a seedling 

 avocado, talking with Mr. Samuel Tustin and the late Professor A. J. Cook, 

 upon the merits of the fruits that hung above our heads. The tree contained 

 from two to three hundred globular fruits, very black in color, and I should judge 

 about three inches in diameter. Mr. Tustin informed me that he had a demeind 

 for more than the tree would produce, and was selling them wholesale at 25 cents 

 each. Inasmuch as that was twenty years ago, I am surprised that with the 

 stimulus of 25 cents for each fruit, nothing was done toward planting commercial 

 orchards. A few weeks ago, I visited this tree and found it still standing and 

 bearing fruit, though now surrounded with curbs and sidewalks. It was in the 

 old days a most excellent fruit. 



That was before Juan Murrieta and J. C. Harvey began distributing 

 throughout Southern California, seeds of avocados which they had secured in 

 Mexico. It was about eighteen years ago that Mr. Harvey began doing what 

 little he could to distribute the seeds, which were the parents of some of our better 

 varieties of today. I visited the Harvey and Murrieta places at the time these 

 early fruits were started and remember the excellence of the fruit, and it seems 

 very strange that its value has not been earlier recognized in view of the fact that 

 even at that time a few of us realized the necessity of having a fruit that could 

 qualify as a food in the way the avocado does, filling a field that is impossible 

 to any other fruit yet discovered. 



It has been a deep pleasure to me to have advocated for a number of years, 

 by voice and pen, the planting of avocados in every door-yard. I was asked 

 by many nurserymen why I did not advise planting orchards. I replied that I 



