64 



1917 ANNUAL REPORT 



refused a trip to Europe, preferring to encourage in various ways the 

 growth of my orchard. One of these ways consisted in bribing my chauf- 

 feur to shade the trees from the sun by placing a half shingle behind them. 

 (They were about twelve inches high.) Then I, being a person of high 

 enthusiasm and not timid, resolved to increase my acreage. With this in 

 view, and with my husband safely in Europe, I bought the adjoining ten 

 acres and made haste to plant more avocados. 



Being compelled to wait until a hay crop, then on the land, was 

 harvested, the planting was made about the last of July. The trees had 

 been grown, for the most part, in pots in a lath-house, and being set out 

 during a week of great heat, many died, and I lost considerably over a 

 thousand dollars. This, together with the high-priced land, the cost of 

 installing water pipes, the paying of from $5 to $15 a tree, and the ex- 

 penses incidental to planting and caring for the orchard, was making my 

 venture a decidedly costly one. 



Thinking it the better way, I told my husband immediately on his 

 return how I had employed my time, and incidentally his money. I may 

 add that while he had no faith in the avocados, he rather liked me, and 

 my orchard stands as a monument of that very fortunate condition. Thus 

 encouraged, I finished the planting of the orchard as soon as trees could 

 be gotten, and early in the spring of 1914 the planting was finished. 



I had planted trees of the Taft, Meserve, Dickinson, Ganter, Dickey, 

 Challenge, Royal, Fuerte, Puebla, Knight, and Linda varieties. Later, 1 

 planted one or two of the following varieties: Trapp, Walker's Prolific, 

 Fowler, Carton, and, unfortunately, a few Harmans. 



Having finished the planting, I began to look forward impatiently 

 to the not-far-distant day, I hoped, when the trees would be loaded with 

 fruit, and I could haughtily consider to whom among the clamoring and 

 tearfully beseeching fruiterers I should consign my fruit. Need I say that 

 no such conditions have obtained. 



My orchard planted in 1913 consists of Tafts, Meserves, and Dick- 

 insons. 



The Tafts are beautiful trees of splendid shape and foliage, many 

 of them over twenty feet high and correspondingly wide. Not one has 

 bloomed as yet, and unless one expects to live to be a very old person, it 

 seems a mistake to plant the Taft. The fact of its being a summer fruit 

 is against it, and I am seriously considering rebudding my trees to either 

 the Fuerte or the Puebla, or to the Knight trees. 



If I were planting today, in the light of my small experience, these 

 are the only varieties I should plant, making an exception possibly in favor 

 of the Challenge. My Challenge trees bore very well last year for trees 

 planted in 1914, producing beautiful, large fruit, whose oil content seemed 

 unusually high, owing possibly to the hot growing season, which seems to 

 develop very richly flavored fruit. 



The Dickinson and Meserve trees are, this year for the first time, 

 setting rather heavy crops of fruit. These trees are as large as the Taft 

 trees, and the orchard is indeed a beautiful one with the vigorous new 

 growth. 



Perhaps I am too impatient for the trees to bear. The trees planted 

 in the spring of 1914 have kept my faith alive. Every one who goes 



