FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
iii 
in by January ist, as holding Trapps 
after that is too great a loss to attempt 
on a commercial scale. Here the hard- 
shells, with their always tight seed will 
come in. In selecting a market fruit, 
quality and flavor, after shipping and 
qualities, must be considered, also appear¬ 
ance and size. Relative weight of seed is 
also a matter of moment, as well as 
nutritive value, and productiveness is 
also a most important item. Then we 
desire a succession from November to 
June, and probably we shall find, when 
we get them fully standardized, that it will 
require half a dozen varieties to furnish 
shipping fruit to best advantage over this 
extended period. The hardshell type 
with its habit of winter maturity, as well 
as its tight seed and hard shell, will 
doubtless supply the majority of our 
standard sorts, and this type possesses a 
very large percentage of purple skinned 
sorts. Some people want to bar out every 
variety which has not a purely green 
rind, but if this is done, it is placing a 
serious handicap against us at the start. 
Nearly 50 per cent of our Guatemalas will 
be eliminated at the start and it seems to 
me hardly justifiable. The industry is in its 
infancy and there seems no reason why 
any prejudice should be formed in the 
market against a purple skinned fruit, if 
we do not encourage it ourselves. Most 
pf the lovers of avocados at this time are 
Those who have learned to eat them in the 
tropics, and these people all know that a 
green rind does not in any way distin¬ 
guish a superior fruit, nor is a purple one 
a sign of inferior quality within. In 
California and its adjacent markets, there 
is no prejudice against purple fruit, and 
there is no reason why anything of the 
sort need grow up in Florida and our 
markets, if we are all careful from the 
start not to encourage it. If we are sad¬ 
dled with this handicap, it will be wholly 
our own fault. What can be more at¬ 
tractive than the deep, mahogany red of 
some of these, or the dark glossy purple- 
black, like a fine eggplant, so often seen. 
A round fruit is the best shape for 
packing, of course, though it need not 
bar out ovate or even pear-shaped varie¬ 
ties possessing other desirable character¬ 
istics. Then we come to size: Our 
tropical strain averages over a pound in 
weight, and for this reason it has become 
customary to cut an avocado in half for 
serving, and in buying fruit the purchaser 
has an involuntary impulse to try to get 
the biggest one he can for his money. 
Everything else being equal, however, a 
fruit the size of the orange and apple, 
possesses many advantages over the big 
fruit. It may be served whole as an in¬ 
dividual portion, and one opens his own 
fruit himself, as he cracks his own egg, 
and knows that no unclean hands, and no 
germ-bearing fly, has had a chance to 
contaminate it. Lightening the in¬ 
dividual weight tends to safety in hand¬ 
ling, while aggregate loss from damage 
or overripe individual fruit is reduced as 
the individual size is reduced. In decid¬ 
ing upon varieties we must not pass final 
judgment upon less than five years of 
fruiting experience, and eight or ten 
years is better. Moreover we must not 
judge a variety by its first crop, even 
though it may showobjectionable features. 
