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1917 ANNUAL REPORT 



puzzling question of which to find an answer than what to plant to produce 

 an orchard that will prove permanently profitable. 



One may frequently hear the current opinion expressed that we must 

 wait ten years longer before we shall know what are to be our standard 

 varieties. Possibly we may have to wait that long to get that knowledge, 

 but we do not intend to wait that long to do our planting and from what 

 we already know about it and what we already have in trees and fruit 

 we can be reasonably sure we can produce orchards that will be permanently 

 profitable even though no trees in them should ever find a place in the final 

 standard class. 



The discovery during the past season of the late ripening period of 

 two imported budded varieties and one of California origin has given us 

 three first-class winter maturing kinds, so that we now have avocados of 

 superior merit to market during every month in the year and that without 

 needing to use very many varieties, so few that even three or four can be 

 made to cover the whole season. 



Since we can now cover the whole year with varieties that are as 

 good as any that we have, there is no need to be unreasonably timid about 

 planting an orchard if we use few enough kinds, selected with sufficient 

 study and good judgment. 



The main puzzle that remains to solve pertaining to the effect of 

 future planting on what we may plant now, is whether the superiority 

 which we may find in the best new kinds from Guatemala will prove very 

 marked as compared with our present best kinds. Among the hundreds 

 of thousands of trees amid which the United States government expert is 

 now seeking the best, and among the selected imported Guatemalan buds 

 soon to fruit here, there are almost certain to be some for which we shall 

 want to reserve a space in our orchards. 



Not too many kinds, is a well proven element of success in orchard 

 planting. Buyers are most interested and pay best prices where they can 

 find large and continuous supplies of a definite article and growers find 

 such marketing simplest and most economical. The California orange has 

 been brought down to one standard variety for one half the year and one 

 for the other half. The greater variation in taste, shape, size, color and 

 period of maturity in the avocado compared with all other fruits will not 

 permit of quite so few, but the nearer we can approximate to it with the 

 very best for each period the better. 



We are not here considering a few trees each of many kinds for 

 our own testing or pleasure. That is quite a different matter. 



Probably the main ripening season for the greatest number of our 

 thick-skin varieties is the summer, some of them beginning earlier and some 

 continuing later. Then we have those maturing most of their crop in the 

 spring, some of which would begin in the winter, and finally we have those 

 maturing most of their crop in the winter, some of which would come ear- 

 lier and some later. 



We find a general agreement to eliminate from consideration those 

 sorts, however good otherwise, that have been found weak and sickly in 

 their growth, such as the Colorado, Dickey, Royal, Murrieta and Presi- 

 dente. 



For the spring including some years the latter part of the winter 



