118 



1917 ANNUAL REPORT 



to light a variety having a desirably smdl seed, combined at the same time 

 vs^ith other desirable characteristics. 



Pyriform and elongated fruits are not so likely to have large seeds 

 as round ones; but it is not true, as has sometimes been thought, that all 

 round avocados have large seeds. Quite a few were found in which the 

 seed was comparatively very small. Some such varieties are included in 

 our introductions. 



The seed is almost invariably tight in its cavity. I would consider 

 this, in fact, one of the characteristics of the Guatemalan race. In one 

 locality a few trees were found whose fruit had seeds sHghtly loose in the 

 cavity, but these were the only ones out of thoussmds examined. 



Varieties Introduced for Trial* 



I wish now to present brief descriptions of the twenty-three varieties 

 which we have introduced from Guatemala for trial generally throughout 

 the avocado growing regions of the United States. More complete de- 

 scriptions of these fruits will appear in a bulletin on the avocados of Guate- 

 mala which the Department of Agriculture expects to publish in the near 

 future, and they will also be sent to growers who receive budwood or trees 

 of these varieties for trial. I will therefore limit myself at this time to a 

 brief mention of the important characteristics and interesting features of 

 each variety. 



The names which we have given these avocados are taken from the 

 Maya tongue, which, in some twenty dialectic forms, is the langueige 

 spoken by the aboriginal inhabitants of Guatemala and southern Mexico. 

 It has been thought that the use of Maya names might serve to distinguish 

 these varieties of foreign origin from those developed in_ California. 



Following the name of each variety I give the number under which the 

 variety was collected in Guatemala. This series of numbers runs up to 36, 

 but some of the varieties originally included in the set were, upon more de- 

 tailed examination, found to be defective in some point, and were not in- 

 troduced. Only 23 out of the original 36 varieties are therefore repre- 

 sented in the collection. Finally, I give the inventory number of the Office 

 of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction (S. P. I.), under which the variety 

 is recorded in Washington. 



Probably the most important point to be tested in connection with 

 these varieties is the character of growth they will make in the United 

 States. Most of the Guatemalan varieties which have been discarded in 

 California during the past five years have had to be dropped because of 

 some defect in habit of growth; the most common defect has been a tend- 

 ency on the part of young budded trees of several varieties to die during 

 the first or second year without any apparent cause. 



It seems probable that these varieties, when grown under good culti- 

 vation in the United States, will in many instsmces produce fruits consid- 

 erably larger than those which were borne by the parent trees in Guatemala. 

 The weights here given may not hold when the varieties come into bear- 

 ing in the United States. 



*I am indebted to Robert N. Jones of the office of Foreign Seed and Plant. 

 Introduction for the drawings illustrating these varieties. They are all 

 from photographs or diagrams made by me in Guatemala. 



