CALIFORNIA AVOCADO ASSOCIATION 



23 



Los Angeles today. If Los Angeles is a good example, we shall have a 

 long future when we extend our shipments and take up San Francisco, 

 Portland, Seattle, and the Middle West, like Salt Lake, Denver, and El 

 Paso. They will keep up business for some time. 



The trees are not going to come into market with one fell swoop. 

 Three years from now, — and there will not be much production before 

 that time — I think the market can easily be developed to keep up with 

 the development of the orchards planted. 



The surplus of the fruit here will be as in Florida, of the thin-skinned 

 varieties; that is, the summer and the fall-bearing stock. We are not 

 looking at the past, we are looking to the future, and I believe it is a 

 self-evident proposition that the winter-grown fruits are going to bring 

 high prices. Our efforts as an Association must be to develop the market 

 for the year around. 



Mr. Whedon: Every person advocates his stock. A man selling a 

 piano, auto, or anything else, advocates the one he carries as the best. 

 Some say the small thin-skinned varieties are the best in our market. 

 Everybody going into the business is new to it, and I think it would be 

 no more than right that the Association should place itself on record as 

 to what is the best variety, so that we would not be compelled to rely on 

 any individual's opinion. It is a pretty hard matter to say which is the 

 best, but the Association would probably have the best opportunity of 

 knowing what would be the best. 



Chairman: That is the purpose of the committee we have recently 

 appointed to classify and register all varieties. I think their statement 

 as to varieties and qualities will be far more impartial than if the Asso- 

 ciation or its officers acted. This committee was appointed from people 

 who have no commercial interest and are especially qualified to act on 

 tliese very questions. This committee has been chosen because they are 

 the best qualified people to pass upon the question and are not interested 

 commercially. While statements may be correct from a writer's stand- 

 point they are naturally prejudiced to some degree in his own interests. 

 When the Association goes on record, it wants to go on record through 

 its committee. 



Question: I would like to ask Mr. Taft whether he has noticed a 

 tendency of the thick-skinned varieties to bear on alternate years? 



Mr. Taft: Yes, with some. Really the industry has not been estab- 

 lished long enough to lay down any rules. Sometimes a tree bears on al- 

 ternate years, especially if one year it bears an enormous crop. If it 

 over-works itself one year, it is apt to rest the next. I have known trees, 

 to bear enormous crops for three years in succession and beyond that 

 our experience does not go. 



THE MINERAL ELEMENTS OF THE AVOCADO 

 Professor M. E. Jafifa, Division of Nutrition, University, Berkeley, Cal. 



The analyses that have been heretofore published of the avocado have 

 not given any insight into the nature of the mineral matter of this fruit, 

 merely indicating the total amount. A few years ago when a dietary or 

 even the nutritive value of a food was discussed, it was deemed only 



