Hunt Institute Archives Text Discovery Platform

… mber is: US AID - Agriculture Guatemala APO New York, N.Y. 09891 If you care to send the cuttings through this address or directly here, either way would be satisfactory. Do you have Dr. Popencoe's book on Tropical Fruit Production? While out of print, it is most valuable book to have. Please inform Dr. Khatikarn that we appreciate his efforts in helping us secure some trial varieties of grapes. Your work in Thailand sounds like you are making good progress. We may be entering in a new phase of agricultural training here in Guatemala. It will involve what could be an extension of the Mobile Agricultural Schools t …

AVOCADO Since production figures change from year to year, due to increased plantings, poor crops, and the like, I believe it best to leave them out entirely. I also think it best to leave out the names of present-day commercial varieties; this is a young industry and the favorites varieties of today may be forgotten ten years from now. I have scratched out two lines which I do not believe are necessary and suggest re-writing the indicated paragraph as follows: Though it was widely cultivated in tropical America before the Conquest - in the form of individual seedling trees in dooryards - the avocado did not comm …

… roductions there are Elberta and Fay Elberta which are two of the favorite varieties for canning peach-halves in California. These two have but a few leaves at the tips of the branches now. I have obtained grafting material from San Lucas, San Bartolo, Chimaltenango and Quezaltenango of the melocotones considered there as the best yellow, hard either red-pit or yellow pit types. These have been grafted on ordinary white native peach roots and they seem to be doing well. I also took scion material from some of the introductions, grafted on seedling white peaches and they also took well. At this stage I ran out of …

11 Probablemente originaria del Brasil, pero cultivada desde tiempos pre-colombinos en muchas partes de la América tropical. Hoy día dos variedades son preeminentes para la producción comercial: la Smooth Cayenne (Cayena Lisa) para conservas (exportación) y la Red Spanish (española roja) para fruta fresca (exportación). Hay otras variedades superiores en calidad, pero no tan adecuadas para el comercio. La producción de la Smooth Cayenne ha alcanzado proporciones tremendas en las Islas de Hawaii, desde donde se exporta en latas y en forma de jugo de piña. Cuba y Puerto Rico exportan fruta fresca (Red Spanish) en c …

Antigua G, 13 July 1959 Mr E S Whitman, Vice President, United Fruit Co, Pier 3 North River, New York 6, NY Dear Whit: Back yesterday from two weeks in Mexico, during which I delivered six lectures to lads from 10 countries who were attending the International Course on Horticulture, then went with them on a 5-day field trip during which I showed them how to graft fruit trees successfully if you keep your knife so sharp that you can shave the hairs off your forearm. I sent you a copy of my banana syllabus; and incidentally, at the Rockefeller Foundation in Mexico City I met a Dr Simmonds, Englishman, who has been …

… inted in Spanish. I suggest you write to the Department of Agriculture of Puerto Rico for a copy, if you have not already received a copy. It might be just what you are looking for. Did you locate my guava propagation manuscript and send it off to Hacienda to see about publishing it? I think the subject is still fairly pertinent and up to date, so if you agree, I would surely appreciate it if you can send it along to Hacienda with whatever comments or recommendations you might care to make. Your assignment in El Salvador sounds interesting and with the backing of Chico de Sola, the plant propagation angle should …

AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA SUB-TROPICAL EXPERIMENT STATION January 31, 1961 ROUTE 1, BOX 560 HOMESTEAD, FLORIDA Dr. Wilson Popenoe Antigua, Guatemala Central America Dear Uncle Wilson: Yours of January 20 including ck. was received. Thanks for the information about the black sapote. We have about a dozen fruiting trees of this species on the station now, including one which is quite a bit sweeter than the others and which we have propagated vegetatively. I have sampled fruit from about a dozen other trees growing in this area and have not found any as sweet as our clone. The fruit is g …

CALIFORNIA CULTIVATOR June 25, 1921 Book Review MANUAL OF SUBTROPICAL FRUITS "Manual of Tropical and Subtropical Fruits, Excluding the Banana, Coconut, Pineapple, Citrus, Olive and Fig," by Wilson Popenoe, agricultural explorer, United States department of agriculture, published by Macmillan Company, New York, for $5.00. Wilson Popenoe has rendered a distinct service in gathering this great fund of information as to tropical and subtropical fruits. Among the hundred or more fruits discussed are the following: The avocado, which seems destined to become widely popular because of its high oil content; the charimoa …

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA GAINESVILLE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENT OF FRUIT CROPS Dear Wilson: We are most sorry to hear of the tragic loss of Nany's husband, but glad you could go to her side. It may be some time before you can return to Antigua, but I will try to have something awaiting you. The suggestions about pineapples are excellent, and I am glad to incorporate them with one exception. The paragraph on methods of grafting seems necessary to me. In Puerto Rico, Queensland, South Africa, and Florida, as well as in Hawaii, growers are using these techniques, and I think we cannot afford to omit them from ou …

is thick and leathery, being admirably adapted to the intense sun, partial shade, and very cold. The fruit is so small, lemon-like, about the size of a small cherry, dull green in color, and when ripe is whitish and the most delicately edible, combining the flavor of strawberry and pineapple. One of the most notable features of the Feijoa is the extreme sweetness of the fruit. In contrast with this is its curiously seedy gourd-like appearance, which is sufficient to deter the casual visitor from the table, and the fruit is not always available for market until after the fruit is known. The uses of the Feijoa are …

CULTIVATOR March 23, 1911. GRAPEFRUIT IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. By C. F. Baker, Pomona College, Claremont, Cal. When Americans began settling in considerable numbers in Cuba, their attention was early turned to the possibilities of citrus culture there. The island abounded in hard wild seedling varieties of various kinds; however, some very superior fruits. Scale insects of many varieties occurred there, but were held in check by fungous parasites and ladybirds, though also other more serious pests, such as a pernicious root borer, exist there, and have already begun their active planting of citrus fruits. They ord …

… ia, scarcely more than one degree from the Equator, but at an altitude of about 3000 feet, it is grown commercially. According to Jaime Villegas, professor of agronomy at the Escola Superior de Agricultura Tropical in Cali, there are perhaps 20 hectares now in production, mostly in the form of small vineyards not over one-half hectare in extent. The plants are not grafted, but are grown from cuttings. They are trained upon trellises with horizontal wires at a height of five or six feet above the ground. Two crops are pro- duced each year. It is customary to wait about one month after a crop has been harvested, th …

… f which are adapted to the climate. In a letter to David Fairchild of the U. S. Bureau of Plant Industry, the Superintendent of the gardens says: "As regards the conditions under which the Mango ripens its fruit, undoubtedly high temperature is necessary and moderately dry weather. The fruits ripen here from May to July and thus have the hottest and driest time of the year in which to ripen. Generally in India, the summer dry wind that no doubt acts on the acids of the fruit." A number of varieties which have been successfully grown at Saharanpur are to be tested in California soon, as the Bureau of Plant Industr …

good personnel. They have asked me to come there to make plans, but I can not do it soon, in any case, as I am hoping to settle down here for the winter and write a "Manual Práctico de Fruticultura Tropical" for Salvat Editores of Barcelona. I think this work would have real value in tropical America for many years to come. I have told the Fundación Mendoza that they would be lucky if they could get you to organise and start their program of fruit improvement, training two or three local men to carry on. I wonder what happened to the program in Salvador? As far as I know, they did not send you any boys to train; …

… parts of the world. But they have furnished the basis on which to commence experimentation. And in the past months, the work commenced in 1934 under the auspices of Merck and Company has commenced to bear fruit. At Finca Helvetia, at Finca Moc, at Finca Panama, at Finca El Zapote, and at Finca Samac in Coban are several hundred Ledger trees grown from the seed obtained from Java, which have attained sufficient size to permit analyses to be made of their bark, and which show definite promise of proving satisfactory for commercial cultivation in the form of grafted clones (varieties) or as seedlings, if protected …

7 regions. It is slow to come into production, though they now have a variety in Florida (its name is Prolific) which comes into bearing at an early age and the fruits are of large size. In the past five years I have taken many grafted trees of this variety to Guatemala. The common name in Florida is sapodilla; in Guatemala it is sometimes called nispero. There are commercial plantings of Prolific and one or two other grafted varieties wouth of Miami in Florida. The Chinese lychee (Litchi chinensis) is grown commercially in Florida and we have been working with it for more than 30 years in Honduras and Guatemala. …

… onths at about 45 degrees Fahrenheit before planting in the seedbeds. I urge you to get a pound of this seed right away - it may not be available later in the year. By the time you have seedlings ready for grafting I will be able to get you some good propagating material - scions - from several of the pears we are growing in Guatemala with great success. Sr Rojas mentions that he plans to visit Guatemala, to obtain information which will be useful in connection with the program in Costa Rica. He asks what is the best time to come. I would recommend that he wait until July or August. That of course will be too lat …

seed, and light brown in color, coarsely granular in texture, often times with rough fibers running through it. The flavor, however, is good and strongly suggestive of coconut, and very oily. These ordinary coyos are not worth growing in the United States, but the large one shown on the preceding pages certainly is, and I have obtained seeds of the ordinary ones to grow grafting stock. Following are outlines of two fruits of the ordinary type:

2 but only one produces fruit of really good quality- I am trying to propagate it. The bud came from California and the fruit looks like a large Fuerte. Some years ago a friend of mine who owned some restaurants in New York saved avocado seeds and so gathered several hundred which he turned over to me, and I in turn gave them to the Botanical Garden here, but they did not have much luck with them. I think they kept them too wet. In the meantime we put several buds on an old unproductive tree and now it is producing fruit of two varieties. Those who have tasted the fruit don't know (and therefore don't like) avoca …

Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) In Polynesia, only the coconut compares with the breadfruit as a food source, but nowhere else does it rank so high in value. Native to the Malay archipelago, this was one of the food plants taken to the Pacific islands in prehistoric times, where it literally became the staff of life for the Polynesians--of far greater importance than it has ever had in Malaysia or India. Because of the enthusiastic report by Captain Cook's expedition on the ease with which the tree produced large quantities of food with little or no effort on the part of the natives, the British admiralty sent an …