caijIfornia avocado association 



85 



Agriculture has a good deal of power, and I am willing to say that 

 we don't want to attack it unless we are sure we will stand by each 

 other. Unless we are going to fight for the name we advocate, we 

 had better take our medicine and call it the avocado, not because it 

 is right, but because we have to. The Department has a great deal 

 of power and when it comes to a show down they can stop our 

 shipping avocados under the name ahuacates. They are not dis- 

 posed to acknowledge mistakes. As a matter of fact, if you look 

 up the name of avocado, you will find it is a Spanish term for serv- 

 ing an appeal, from one court to another. The whole thing is obso- 

 lete. There is no connection with any fruit or with any living 

 thing. It was the error of some one in the Department trying to 

 translate something he didn't know anything about. The Depart- 

 ment accepted it, and they are strong, and they don't have to 

 acknowledge their mistakes. I think if we are unanimous for the 

 name ahuacate, we would make them come through. I am not 

 for fighting and bumping my head against a stonewall unless I am 

 sure of my asociates, and I am not sure, because some are against 

 me. I think the proper thing is to adopt the name avocado, but let 

 us not adopt it without understanding the reason for it. 



Professor Condit, in response to these remarks, said : 



I have carried on quite an investigation in literature, and 

 I find that the first use of the name avocado was in 1696, 

 by a man by the name of Sloan. I have just received a photo- 

 graph of the original book written by Mr. Sloan, showing the word, 

 avocado, and I find during practically two hundred years since this 

 word has been largely used in the English literature. I believe we 

 should encourage the use of this name because it is an English 

 name, and has been endorsed by these other associations. 



If this is a proper time for a motion, I have been thinking of 

 the matter of our varieties, and there has been impressed on me 

 that the Department of Agriculture has been doing very excel- 

 lent work in the importation of different varieties, and it has also 

 come to my attention and notice that there are a very large num- 

 ber of fruits existing probably in Guatemala and Central America 

 which have not been introduced and should be brought into 

 California at the very earliest possible date. It seems to me 

 while the department may possibly send a man to these foreign 



