CALIFORNIA AVOCADO ASSOCIATION 



75 



It is, of course, of great importance to find as fast as possible what 

 thin-skin varieties produce fruit of good size, of the best quality and in 

 dependable quantity; what sorts are hardiest as to frost (there is a great 

 range in this respect); what sorts are handsome, inviting in appearance; 

 what sorts are tenacious (some good varieties drop off very easily); and 

 what are free from the habit of developing soft spots or other blemishes. 



To this end we should not be too urgent in our advice to plant only 

 the established varieties. We are at the experimental stage and there 

 should be a great deal of seedling observation. Perhaps the most interest- 

 ing feature of the avocado is its immense individual variation, coupled with 

 the fact that until this country took it up there had nowhere been any 

 systematic breeding or fixing of varieties. When I was first inquiring 

 about it, a friend obtained for me a letter from the Mexican minister of 

 Fomento, in which he said, "There are no budded ahuacates in Mexico; 

 in fact there are very few trees planted anywhere. They come up in 

 2orners." 



Nevertheless, Mexico, which is our chief source for both types, the so- 

 called Guatemalan as well as the Mexican, has, in a wholly accidental way, 

 produced all sorts of fruits, and our named varieties are simply selections 

 from the product of their seeds. We mustn't begin just yet to be too wise 

 on the subject, for we have hardly done more than look over the fence 

 upon a field that has not been measured. 



We have thin-skins to cover the markets from August to November. 

 We have thick-skins from March to July. There remain only December, 

 January and February, and our nurserymen are reaching out to supply 

 these months also, and have perhaps done so already, though it is not cov- 

 ering January and February to pick and market in those months fruit that 

 is not really fit to eat until March. 



Our unbelieving friends have a patronizing way of conceding the fall 

 market, saying that the thin- skins, after all, have their use, as fillers of 

 the gap. The difference between us is that, whereas they conceive that 

 the industry is marking time, or soft-pedaling, through those months 

 when the big fruit is in retirement, I maintain that it is only in that period 

 that the true and supreme ahuacate is to be had and that the rest of the 

 year is just doing what it can to keep the business alive. 



I have not undertaken to cover all the points in this case. I was sim- 

 ply to put the subject before you, and I have considered the probable scar- 

 city of time as a reason for doing this with extreme brevity. We are ail 

 learners together, with a very new subject, and no inquiry can as yet be 

 considered closed. I will only repeat my opinion that, so far as I can 

 see at present, the true Mexican ahuacate, the leading type in the country 

 which certainly has the lead in the use and knowledge of this fruit is 

 well worthy of our serious development and promises a commercial reward 

 to intelligent perseverance. However, the question of comparative merit 

 may finally be settled between the two types, they are so different that 

 neither should be discarded in favor of the other, any more than we should 

 abandon the pear because we approve of the apple. 



