42 



1917 ANNUAL REPORT 



suggested an animal familiar to these sea-farers, the alligator. As the 

 fruit was shaped like a pear, they called it alligator pear. 



The particular variety they got is said to have been a thick, rough, 

 verrucose-coated, pear-shaped fruit, — I've heard Mr. Popenoe describe it. 

 I think, from the description, they must have gotten his fruit from the 

 Dickinson tree, just opposite the entrance to the Universiy of Southern 

 California, when Balboa one dry season discovered the headwaters of 

 the Los Angeles River. 



The name alligator pear is illogical, because many hundreds of 

 varieties have neither pear shape, nor alligator skin. If the name alligator 

 pear must be used, let's put it over onto — the Hubbard squash. 



The superb fruit gets in wrong with many who would otherwise be 

 its friend, when, instead of its name suggesting its coming down from a 

 celestial direction, from one of the truly great trees of the earth, as does 

 the benign avocado, the other, hyphenated name, is suggestive of the 

 crawling and sprawhng on the ground, of one of the three ugliest, biggest 

 mouthed animals of creation, the hippopotamus, rhinoceros and crocodile. 

 Take this from one who ever carries the beloved avocado in his heart, 

 (and elsewhere whenever he can get it) and has had training in first aid 

 to those who have been in any way affected by the avocado, that he has 

 found many hotel guests, men and women seemingly healthy, who were 

 prejudiced against this superlatively fine food, simply because of the name, 

 and the unpleasant thoughts it starts. Their expressions were varied and 

 numerous; lack of space crowds them out of this edition. 



Hyphenated names are not popular nowadays. The one in question 

 is awkward, and in these days of short-cuts and saving lost motion, is 

 unnecessarily long. In writing, it requires just double the space occupied 

 by avocado. Those who are constantly handling the fruit use the nick- 

 name, " 'gators." This makes it misleading. One day a raw recruit 

 down in the storeroom of the hotel, in the absence of the storekeeper, 

 received a box marked as containing 'gators. The deliveryman had, 

 also, told him they were 'gators. The employee was one of those "meant- 

 wells" of the Happy Hooligan order, and he hurried upstairs, what he 

 supposed was a box of shoes, to the room of a well-known San Francisco 

 wholesale shoe dealer. 



Sometimes the entire word alligator is used, which is fully as mis- 

 leadmg. Witness a result: A recently come over Irishman, attendant 

 an the kitchen, who was as fresh and green as the grass in his native land, 

 in helping unload a great turtle and some giant San Francisco crabs, ex- 

 pressed amazement that such things should be eaten by human beings, 

 but when the deliveryman handed out a box which he said was full of 

 alligators, the astonished son of Erin almost dropped it in exclaiming: 

 "Alligators! Will fer hivin's sake, what nixt'll they be ate'n in this hotil!'* 



It is not too late in the young American life of the fruit to change 

 its haphazard name to something better. Mistakes in names are often 

 corrected by the courts, and no dishonor attaches thereto. And surely, 

 there is no more honorable or commendable act in the life of a good 

 woman, no matter how late in years, when, in the happy presence of God, 

 good angels and witnesses assembled, she stands up and joyfully changes 

 her name. 



In an unguarded moment, down at the meeting in San Diego, I got 



