66 'proceedings of thirty-sixth fruit-growers ' CONVENTION. 



SOILS. 



The almond likes a deep, rich, sandy loam soil. It should be deep 

 and well drained, because this tree will not endure wet feet much better 

 than the peach. The soil should be rich, for the tree is a ravenous 

 feeder. It must have plenty of soil moisture, as it is the earliest to 

 begin work in the spring and the last to take its annual vacation in 

 the autumn; and to make good strong fruit buds for the succeeding 

 year the tree should hold its leaves well into November. It can not 

 do this without good moisture conditions continuously throughout the 

 season. 



VARIETIES. 



Perhaps there is no point in the whole proceeding wherein greater 

 care is necessary than in the proper selection of varieties. Everything 

 else may be very good, but if you have the wrong variety you will likely 

 wait in vain for your commercial success. It is utterly impossible to 

 give the one best variety for all sections, because it is not at all likely 

 that any one variety will do equally well in all localities. If you are 

 greatly in doubt get some budding sticks of the variety you are con- 

 sidering and bud them on one of the proper trees in your neighborhood. 

 In two years, certainly in three years, you will have the beginning of your 

 proof. However, no one should emphasize the qualities of any nut or 

 fruit by one or two years' proving. It should require ten or a dozen 

 years proving before speaking out with authority. If this plan were 

 generally followed we should not have so many disappointed orchard- 

 ists. Usually, when a man finds a new fruit which lias extraordinary 

 quality, he forthwith begins to herald it and people begin to plant, yet 

 it might be such a shy bearer or poor keeper as to prove a commercial 

 failure, no matter how excellent the fruit might be. 



The original almond was no doubt a hardshell. In fact, we know 

 of nothing like the papershell nut until in recent years, and I doubt 

 if one in five of the population of the United States even now have ever 

 seen a papershell almond. Whenever any animal or vegetable product 

 is bred very highly for quality, it is apt to be lacking in quantity when 

 it comes to reproduction or propagation. So with the almond. The 

 papershell is largely deficient in pollen. So sure am I of this that I 

 would not think of planting a block with all papershells, no matter how 

 much the varieties might be mixed. It has been customary to plant an 

 occasional seedling or bitter almond in the orchard so as to furnish the 

 necessary pollen ; but we now have varieties of the sweet sof tshell which 

 answer the requirements and are profitable. 



My first and great reliance is on the Texas Prolific. I am planting 

 it solid, and am also alternating it with other varieties, for the benefit 

 of the other varieties, however. It blooms later by two weeks than any 

 other variety that I know of, tree grows well and bears every year. 

 Trees now twenty years old have born seventeen consecutive crops. I 

 would also plant Nonpareil and Drake's Seedling, alternating either 

 variety with Texas Prolific every two rows. It is easier harvesting if 

 two' rows of a kind are planted together. The Nonpareil ripens early 

 and can be gathered before the other varieties are ready. Then comes 

 the Drake 's Seedling about three weeks later. The Texas Prolific comes 

 along about two weeks later than the Drakes, all of which is a great 



