CALIFORNIA AVOCADO ASSOCIATION 



11 



which cannot be blamed on the climatic conditions at Berkeley, 

 for seedlings often show this characteristic in more favored locali- 

 ties. It may be the same tree mentioned in the California Station 

 Report for 1882, as follows : ''The aguacate has now for three 

 years withstood the winter frosts in a sheltered position and proves, 

 perhaps, more strikingly than anything else grown here, how 

 little we can foretell what will prove hardy." 



At the Napa Soda Springs in Napa County a large avocado 

 tree has been growing for some twenty-five years. The tree is 

 about forty feet high and is rather slender, being surrounded by 

 other tall-growing trees. The fruit, of which a few were produced 

 both in 1914 and 1915, is bright green even when ripe, and is said 

 to be of good quality. 



A bearing avocado tree of the thin-skinned type is located at 

 Los Gatos, Santa Clara County. It is a seedling obtained from 

 Santa Barbara nine years ago. The tree is now about fifteen feet 

 high and during the past four years has produced fair crops of 

 small, purplish-black fruits. 



The success of these old seedling trees in such widely scat- 

 tered localities presages successful results with plantings on a 

 larger scale, and numerous inquiries are received by the Experi- 

 ment Station regarding climatic conditions, cultural methods, and 

 promising varieties. Commercial plantings have already been made 

 in the foothills of Tulare County, in Sutter, Butte, and Glenn Coun- 

 ties, as well as in a few other localities of central and northern 

 California. One fact has been clearly demonstrated by some of 

 these plantings, namely, that water must be withheld in the fall 

 and the trees properly hardened before the cold weather sets in, 

 otherwise the tender growth will be cut back. It is this fact which 

 renders it difficult to gather data on the frost resistance and hardi- 

 ness of any tree, but especially of evergreen fruit trees which have 

 several periods of growth during the season. Their hardiness de- 

 pends to a large extent upon the degree of dormancy of the new 

 growth. The fact that one grower finds the tree of a certain 

 variety of avocado to be badly injured by ten degrees of frost, while 

 another reports no injury, means little until all the circumstances 

 are known, including the condition of the tree in each case, the state 

 of the weather before and after the cold spell, and the duration of 

 the low temperature. A variety should not therefore be condemned 



