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1917 ANNUAL REPORT 



where sturdy seedlings were waiting to be budded. Imagine our feelings 

 when, after making one of these trips into the back country, and returning 

 with a shipment of budwood, let us say of a variety which seemed espe- 

 cially promising, a cablegram arrived from Washington ten days later 

 bluntly stating that the entire shipment was dead upon arrival ! Two weeks' 

 work, the last four or five days under pressure, all for nothing ! But before 

 the explorations were completed and I made my plans to return to the 

 United States, every variety which I had selected for introduction was 

 safely growing in the greenhouses at Washington or in the Plant Introduc- 

 tion Garden at Miami, Florida. 



The successful establishment of these varieties in the United States is 

 due in a large measure to the efforts of Dr. B. T. Galloway and Edward 

 Goucher of the Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction, the former 

 having general charge of the work and the latter doing most of the budding. 

 Mr. Edward Simmonds, of our Miami Station, and J. M. Rankin, of our 

 Yarrow Station, also deserve much credit in the matter. Naturally enough, 

 some of the budwood which came through was in very precarious condition, 

 " — scarcely seeming to be alive, yet not to be discarded as dead. But the 

 skill of Mr. Goucher and Mr. Simmonds made it possible to save all of the 

 varieties, when it appeared, at one time, as though it would be necessary 

 to establish a nursery in Guatemala, propagate budded trees there and 

 bring them home when large enough. Two nurseries were, in fact, started 

 with such an object in view, one at Guatemala City, and the other at 

 Quirigua, but the difficulty in shipping budwood was later overcome and it 

 was not necessary to bud young seedlings and bring home growing trees. 



I say the difficulty was overcome; I might better explain that it over- 

 came itself, and in this manner: toward the end of the rainy season, Octo- 

 ber, and from then until March, the young branchlets suitable for budwood 

 were covered with a heavy growth of sooty mold and other fungi. In ship- 

 ment the fungi developed vigorously, and the budwood was nearly all dead 

 upon arrival at Washington. Avocado trees in Guatemala make new 

 crrowth February and March, a time of the year when there is no rain- 

 fall. This growth was sufficiently mature for use by May or June, and 

 had not yet become discolored with sooty mold, but was green and bright. 

 Nearly all shipments during May, June and July reached Washington in 

 splendid condition. I do not say that the absence of sooty mold was solely 

 responsible for the difference; I only state that nearly all of the shipments 

 in May, June and July were successful, while the majority of those from 

 October to March were failures, or at best only a few budsticks were saved 

 out of each shipment. 



Method of Shipment 



It may be of interest to explain that our method of packing this bud- 

 wood was the simplest possible, the budsticks being placed in moist sphag- 

 num moss and wrapped in heavy oiled paper. Sometimes the shipments 

 were forwarded in mailing tubes of tin, sometimes the bundles were 

 wrapped simply in strong brown paper; both were equally successful. 

 Given clean budwood to begin with, the essential point in packing is the 

 amount of moisture added to the sphagnum moss. It is our custom to have 

 the moss bone dry at the time of packing, and then moisten it at the rate 

 of half an ounce of water to an ounce of moss, being careful to have the 



