FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
67 
the avocados as among the citrus vari¬ 
eties, we strike some that are particularly 
difficult to bud, and others that take very 
readily. Buds of the Chapellow avocado 
live with the greatest ease. The Trapp 
avocado does so somewhat less readily; 
the Pollock buds fairly easily, and the 
Baldwin requires considerable attention 
to work well. The family avocado is 
one which begins to ripen in July, and 
continues to ripen its fruit until late in 
October and November. It should not 
l)e planted for commercial purposes, but 
is one well worth having at the home 
place. 
TRANSPLANTING. 
Lately a great deal has been said 
about the difficulty of transplanting 
avacados. Just why this should occur, 
T do not know. I know that a certain 
disease occurs upon the young trees, 
which is especially apt to strike in at 
the point where the stock is cut off. 
This difficulty can be avoided to a con¬ 
siderable extent by waxing over the stock 
at this point when it is cut off, or by 
painting it over. Then the shock of trans¬ 
planting is apt to prove somewhat severe 
and the tree apt to die back to the bud. 
In my own field there seems to have been 
no difficulty in planting avocado seed¬ 
lings. As a matter of fact, I have turned 
this work over to colored labor, and the 
success met with has been somewhat bet¬ 
ter than the experiences in having col¬ 
ored labor set out citrus trees. From my 
experience in this matter I am inclined to 
believe that there is no greater difficulty 
in having avocados set out than in having 
citrus trees set out. 
SAPODILLOS. 
This is one of the fruits that origi¬ 
nated in the Western Hemisphere. In 
fact, it has not been domesticated in the 
true sense of the word. A few seedling 
trees have been planted out in the Antil¬ 
lian region, which includes the West In¬ 
dies, the eastern portion of Mexico, the 
eastern coast of Yucatan, and in the 
southern portion of Florida. They also 
occur as native trees down through the 
central portion of Mexico, and I believe 
in South America. 
This species adapts itself to cultiva¬ 
tion very readily. The number of vari^ 
eties, however, are about as great as the 
number of seedlings that come into bear¬ 
ing. In the Miami and Key West market 
a very careful distinction is made between 
the better and the inferior fruits. In 
Miami some of the largest and finest of 
this fruit sell for high as ten cents apiece, 
and the smaller varieties one can fre¬ 
quently buy at ten cents a dozen. Syste¬ 
matic work at propagating and improving 
sapodillos has already begun at the Sub¬ 
tropical Laboratory. 
The region through which sapodillos 
may be grown successfully, is practical- 
1 }^ coincident with the region where the 
mango may be grown. 
CERIMAN. 
(Monstera deliciosus). This plant be¬ 
longs to the peculiar family of aroids 
which includes the calla lily, the tania 
and various other tropical species the 
roots of which are used for food. 
This plant has been grown for a 
number of years and fruited in the vicini¬ 
ty of Miami; also at Mangonia. In the 
conservatories of the North, it has also 
been fruited repeatedly. In the regions 
where only a little frost occurs, and freez¬ 
es are never known, this plant can be 
grown successfully under a pineapple shed. 
It produces a creeping trunk that is about 
four inches in diameter, and if permitted, 
