CALIFORNIA AVOCADO ASSOCIATION 



77 



Among the thick skin varieties which mature their fruit in the 

 spring, summer and fall, we have a number of sufficient merit to 

 seem very sure of being profitable for orchard planting. As yet, we 

 are not so well off in varieties that mature their fruit in the winter, which 

 is the period of highest prices. Most of us are looking forward with the 

 keenest interest toward the discovery of first-class varieties to mature 

 their fruit at this time and watch hopefully the tests of anything which 

 looks promising for this period of the year. One of them is the Puebla. 

 Some trees of this variety matured some fruit in California last winter, 

 which was reported in a letter I received, to have been three-fourths of 

 a pound and over in weight and of fine quality. Such a record we want 

 sustained by similar ones from other trees before planting many Pueblas, 

 but my tree of the variety pleases me greatly. Though planted only two 

 years ago last spring, this Puebla tree now stands nine feet high and ten 

 feet broad, and is carrying 15 fruits, very handsome by reason of their 

 smooth, glossy skin. The tree of the Puebla has a very distinctive in- 

 dividuality. Its short leaf of deep, green color, its stocky, compact 

 growth, and the form it naturally assumes without pruning has reminded 

 many of an apple tree when seeing it at a distance, for the first time. 

 It appears to have ideal characteristics to enable it to carry and protect 

 a crop of fruit. 



Another Mexican bud of promise that is beginning to bear in Cali- 

 fornia and produce a large fruit, too large perhaps, is the Grande. My 

 three-year-old tree of this variety, which has made a fairly good growth, 

 blossomed profusely in the spring and set a quantity of fruit, of which 

 one remains and the rest dropped, as usual with young growing trees, 

 The variety promises to be fruitful. My trees of the Dickinson, Fuerte, 

 Challenge and other desirable kinds, are very satisfactory, but not yet 

 in bearing in most cases. 



Is it not a decided mistake to continue planting poor growing, deli- 

 cate kinds, when we can secure vigorous growers with fruit equally good 

 or better? By such a test, we should discard, among others, the Colo- 

 rado, the Dickey, the Royal and the Presidente. Another one is the 

 Murrieta Green. My two Murrieta trees stood absolutely still for a 

 year and a half, not growing an inch, though since growing quite well, 

 which may or may not continue. I failed to raise the Dickey that I 

 planted and two Colorados, one planted to take the place of the other, 

 My Royal stands the same size as when planted two years ago, and my 

 Presidente is a dwarf tree compared with the others. 



For quite an opposite fault the Atlixco (if my tree is true to name), 

 will hardly find a place in our orchards. It is altogether too aspiring and 

 is determined, in spite of the pruner, to send up into the clouds a 

 straight and branchless stem. The Lyon, some think, goes unjustly into 

 the feeble class. It is so precocious and fruitful that it may commit 

 tree-suicide if not restrained. Two of my one-year-old Lyon trees each 

 set three or more dozen fruit this spring. Could they have been any- 

 thing but feeble if not helped? All but two or three fruits were removed 

 from each tree and the growth has been excellent right along. 



