78 



1916 ANNUAL REPORT 



Neither do the trees need to take the eucalyptus shape of the parent, 

 at any rate to the same extent, for they submit readily to pruning. For 

 one who will handle it with good sense and wants quick crops of large 

 desirable fruit, the Lyon is not to be overlooked, unless, contrary to my 

 own experience, it proves generally sickly, which some growers state 

 they have found it to be. 



A year ago last spring, I began some commercial planting, feeling 

 it fairly safe to use a selection from some of our numerous fine varieties 

 fruiting in the spring, summer and fall. Planting most largely of the 

 first one I shall mention, my choice from those available were the Blake- 

 man, Taft and Sharpless, which begin to mature their fruit consecutively 

 in the order named. All are vigorous trees and good bearers of fruit, 

 first-class in quality and a pound or more in weight. 



Those who were present at the Association meeting of a year ago 

 and saw the fruit cut before the audience, will remember the beauty 

 of the Sharpless fruit vdth its small seed and exceptionally large pro- 

 portions of cream colored flesh. The growth of the young trees is very 

 slender, but good. The high quality of the Taft fruit is well known. The 

 tree is one of the most beautiful of the avocado family, with its bright 

 red young foliage and good, compact form. It is longer in coming into 

 bearing than many others, but fruitful when it does begin and the tree 

 itself gains by the delay. 



The Blakeman, not as yet so well known, comes from a fruit from 

 Atlixco, Mexico, sent by his brother to John Murrieta of Los Angeles, 

 from which the seed was planted at Hollywood. The fruit is pronounced 

 by some of our avocado experts as, at the very least, not excelled in 

 quality by anything we have in the thick skin type and the young trees 

 are certainly vigorous beyond my expectations. Though I am in the habit 

 of heading in and pruning my avocado trees to produce compactness, my 

 Blakeman trees, planted a year ago last April, now stand between 7 and 8 

 feet in height and broad in proportion. They are larger than any adja- 

 cent citrus trees of three or four times their age and are the admiration 

 of my neighbors. They blossomed profusely last spring and set fruit 

 abundantly, which naturally dropped off, as is to be expected of one- 

 year-old trees. The parent tree was plantel in 1904; it bore a few fruit 

 in 1913; 25 to 50 in 1914; 250 in 1915, and in 1916 has a good big crop 

 now on the tree. 



NECESSITY OF CO-OPERATION 



Charles D. Adams, Upland, Cal. 



The avocado steps into its place among the industries of California 

 at a time when the path it must follow to reach permanent success 

 financially and otherwise is plainly marked out, by the history of the 

 other fruits of importance in the state, to be through co-operation and 

 to be possible by co-operation only. It is not to be had through the 

 individual efforts alone of the isolated grower. Now, more than ever 

 before ,in all lines of production and manufacture, do we find co-opera- 

 tion in practice and its necessity and strength recognized. 



