CALIFORNIA AVOCADO ASSOCIATION 



21 



Truth Seven is a definition of a lost opportunity. Everyone living in South- 

 ern California has the opportunity to possess for himself and family this most 

 delectable of all foods. Every day that he fails to plant from one to 1 00 trees 

 is surely a lost opportunity. 



PRESIDENT SALLMON FOLLOWING MR. COOLIDGE 



Those of us who read farm journals of Southern California are familiar 

 with the articles of a man who has the pen of a ready writer and whose message 

 is always readable, interesting and helpful. We are glad to hear him here; his 

 voice is new to us. I am glad to introduce the Farm Advisor of Los Angeles 

 County, Mr. Robert G. Hodgson. 



AVOCADOS AS A COMMERCIAL INDUSTRY 



ROBERT W. HODGSON 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 



This afternoon I am experiencing a rather novel sensation. For the first 

 time in my life I am literally as well as figuratively full of my subject — avocados. 



The avocado as a home garden fruit and dooryard tree has long since 

 proven its entire success in California and in Southern California particularly. 

 There have been those, however, who have not believed that it would eventually 

 become a commercial industry. I will admit that at one time thus it seemed 

 to me. But at the present time I will have to confess that I believe the avocado 

 has arrived as a commercial fruit industry; and there are a number of reasons 

 why I think so. Let us apply a number of tests which one vv^ould ordinarily 

 consider as marking the point when an industry is just emerging from the experi- 

 mental period and entering the era of a commercial success. 



Tests of a Commercial Horticultural Industry) 



In the first place, we now have quite definite information regarding a 

 considerable acreage of land in Southern California which is adapted to the 

 culture of the avocado. It is therefore no longer a venture to attempt to grow 

 avocados in certain districts for they have become proven territory. 



In the second place no longer do we have just a few dooryard trees. In 

 my work I run across large numbers of commercial plantings of avocados. I 

 would not be surprised if the total approximated one thousand acres in com- 

 mercial orchard plantings at the present time. Then again there has been 

 accumulated a fair and ever increasing amount of information relative to the 

 cultural requirements of this fruit, enough to make it possible for the novice who 

 will take pains to inform himself that he may be reasonably certain that he can 

 grow the fruit without any great difficulty. Further, there is a substantial and 

 increasing demand for the avocado. 



Another reason why I believe the avocado has reached the period of com- 

 mercial success is the growing recognition in other parts of the country that 

 avocado raising in California constitutes a commercial industry. Situated as 

 I am as County Agent in a county to which settlers from all parts of the country 

 are coming, I receive a great many letters of inquiry regarding the prospects for 

 engaging in various fruit industries. In the past three months, I have received 

 at least twenty-five inquiries regarding the avocado industry. One prominent 

 eastern apple grower stated that he was thinking of planting two hundred acres 

 if prospects were sufficiently good. 



