190 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
to get some. About six months ago— 
this is a subject in which I have been 
interested for a long time—I had eaten 
some papayas that were very delicious. 
I knew the Department had been intro¬ 
ducing them, and as soon as the matter 
of propagation came up, I got about two 
dozen plants of the very best varieties. 
They were shipped to me wrapped in the 
ordinary way in pieces of paper, and they 
are all growing nicely. 
If you cannot get them right now, but 
make known your wishes in the matter, 
you will probably stand a chance of get¬ 
ting them some time. I had to wait 
about six months before I could get any. 
Write to the Department of Agriculture 
at Washington. All of that work of 
distribution goes through the Washing¬ 
ton headquarters; write there, and Mr. 
David Fairchild, of the Agricultural De¬ 
partment, will see that your name is en¬ 
tered on the list. / 
Mr. Moses: I have been growing pa¬ 
payas for several years from seedlings, 
from planting seeds, and I always chose 
the very large fruit when I could get it. 
Almost always, when they fruited, the 
fruit would be smaller; perhaps but lit¬ 
tle bigger than my fist, where the parent 
fruit would be as large as a cantaloupe. 
The plants had all the attention I was 
capable of giving them in the ordinary 
way, and ample fertilizer. There was 
a good soil and plenty of humus. 
Professor Rolfs: In the case of pa¬ 
paya as in the case of pecans and all of 
our fruits affected by direct pollination, 
when you use the seedlings, the chance of 
getting as good a fruit as the fruit 
which contained the seed, is very small. 
In the case of the avocado, usually you 
get fruit about as good, three times out 
of a hundred. In the pecan, you will 
not get one tree out oi a hundred; a 
good, paper-shell pecan. 
In the case of citrus and mangoes, we 
fall into a different class, and it does 
not hold true as much as with pecans 
and avocadoes and fruits of that kind. 
This is true in a great variety of plants. 
The case is different in citrus and man¬ 
goes, where the progeny holds up to the 
parentage on the average, and a reversion 
is really an exception. 
Mr. Goodwin: Mr. Moses’ section is 
probably like mine; the woods are filled 
with what is known as the wild papaya. 
The pollen carried from male plants, 
perhaps, has something to do with the 
small size of his fruit from seedlings. 
Mr. Moses: The nearest wild pawpaw 
is at least three-quarters of a mile from 
my tree. I have been on the place, how¬ 
ever, so perhaps that is how it occurs. 
Mr. Gillette: My experience has been 
the same as that gentleman’s. I remem¬ 
ber particularly when I was in Cuba, I 
took breakfast at the house of a friend of 
mine, and we had a pawpaw for break¬ 
fast. I never had eaten one before, and 
it was delicious. The quality was as 
good as a cantaloupe. I told him I want¬ 
ed some of the seed. They were very 
large; ten or twelve inches long, and 
shaped a good deal like a muskmelon. I 
planted the seeds, and was very much 
disappointed when they began to bear, to 
find I had a small fruit. There are no 
wild pawpaws growing in our neighbor¬ 
hood at all. Most of them were sterile, 
but some of them bore, and they had 
