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REPORT OF THE FIRRT SEMI-ANNUAL MEETING 



time. Credit must be given to that indefatig'a1)le pioneer, George 

 B. Cellon, for having shown considerable sagacity when he picked 

 out the Trapp. Undoubtedly it was the best seedling available in 

 south Florida at the time it was chosen. The Guatemalan varieties 

 bid fair to take first rank in the near future, and Mr. Cellon was 

 the first orchardist to see it. Two years ago, when the seedling 

 Guatemalan avocados came into fruit at our Miami Plant Intro- 

 duction Garden Mr. Cellon saw the trees and was interested. Some- 

 wdiat skeptical at first, he sent to California for budwood of the 

 best Guatemalan varieties of local origin as well as a number of 

 the imported ones. He cut back a young orchard of Trapp avo- 

 cados and top worked them to Guatemalans. Today, less than two 

 years from the insertion of the buds, he has fruit on seven or eight 

 of those trees, representing five varieties, and wdien I last saw him 

 in September he remarked to me, "The other fellows can wait if 

 they want to, but I am going to plant Guatemalan avocados." 

 And suiting the action to the word, he has already set out two or 

 three acres, all that he had stock to plant. We have three seedling 

 trees of the Guatemalan type at our Miami Garden, one of them 

 from a tree here in Tos Angeles. They have been in fruit two or 

 three years, and there is every indication that this type is admir- 

 ably suited to south Florida conditions. A point of almost greater 

 interest is that all these trees ripen their fruit a month to two 

 months earlier than most of your varieties here in California, and 

 I suspect the warmer climate of Florida is going to result in chang- 

 ing the season, making it more nearly what it is in Mexico and 

 Guatemala. W e will know in another year or two. Mr. Cellon 

 is counting on this feature to eliminate competition between 

 Florida and California in the eastern markets. He believes they 

 can supply the late fall trade with Trapps and the winter trade 

 with Guatemalans. Late spring and summer, he says, will be left 

 to California. It is up to you to say whether you are going to stand 

 for this or not ! 



Nearly all of the budded avocado orchards of Florida are to be 

 found in the vicinity of Miami. On the West coast there are a 

 few plantings, notably at Sarasota, a short distance below Tampa, 

 and at Fort Myers. The real avocado region, however, is the 

 Miami limestone belt, which is a narrow strip of land along the 

 East coast between Fort Lyauderdale on the north and the upper- 



