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April, 1911
The Pacific Garden
Issued on the First Day of the Month
Address all Communications to
P. D. BARNHART, Editor
1416 WEST COLORADO AV.
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA
The article by Mr. F. W. Popeno on the Mango, will we are sure, be read with interest by all enthusiasts who have been in the habit of trying out plants new to the country in which they reside. The ambition is a worthy one. It has cost that class of horticulturists a good deal of time and an amount of thought and labor unknown to the other class, who are content to cultivate what has proven to be recommended. We shall traverse the road in which the experimenters walk —and know from experience about the subject of which we write. We shall watch the progress of the young enthusiast and shall do what we can to make his labors a success. None of us, however, should forget the fact that the hygroscope must be carefully studied as the thermometer. A plant may be a success in this peculiarly dry climate, where the temperature of the atmosphere is concerned, yet be a failure because of deficient humidity, and in this class we believe the Mango belongs when the attempt is made to grow it in California.
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC BOTANY,
a quarterly publication of the Department of Biology of Pomona College, Claremont, Cal. If Volume 1, Number 1, is to be the standard of excellence of future publications at this subscription price, one dollar is cheap indeed, and it will be a valuable addition to the short list of that class of publications on the continent. It contains seventy pages, not one of which contains an advertisement. Twenty-four pages, containing interesting illustrations, are devoted to the Avocado. There are two pages to the disease of citrus fruit trees, known as Wilsher-Tip. An interesting and instructive article entitled "A Biological Exploration to Southern Mexico." The Botanic Garden of Para, closes this, the initial number of a first-class quarterly magazine of economic and practical botany.
The West India Gardens, of Altadena, Cal., have issued a 24-page booklet, with the title, The Avocado in Southern California. It is profusely illustrated, and contains a vast amount of information about the fruit and its uses, which is destined to occupy a prominent place in the list of ornamental and economic trees of this southland. The tree for its graceful shape during our sunny summers, the fruit for its delicious taste, and high nutritive value.
Editor, The Pacific Garden,
Dear Sir—Your article in the March issue regarding the Mango in Southern California was read with great interest. But while I agree with you that this fruit has not been a success here up to the present time, I do not believe the trial it has been given has been by any means sufficient to prove that some varieties at least are not adapted to this climate and cannot prove a complete success. There have been but very few Mangoes planted in California, and these were mostly seedlings, mostly of Mexican and central American origin, probably grown in the hot and humid seacoast country where the climate is more like those here. At Montecito, near Santa Barbara, there is a seedling or two of Philippine origin, but these too have come from a climate utterly unlike our own.
There are over two hundred varieties of Mangoes, each named and described, besides countless others that have never been given any attention, and of these many are suited to widely different climatic conditions. Having been under cultivation in various countries and planted in all parts of the tropical world, the Mango has been subjected to many climates, each of which has in time become acclimated. Thus it is found growing and thriving in high mountain valleys in Mexico where the winter temperature is much lower than it is here, and in the northern provinces of India where the winters are cold and the summers hot and dry, conditions which are certainly vastly different from those of its native home, Malaya. We have never tried grafted or seedling trees of varieties found in those countries in a trial, but instead have grown a few seedlings of inferior forms found in humid climates, and because they would not thrive under our conditions here it has been pronounced an impossibility to grow the Mango in California. This decision can ever be ascertained by growing seedlings, as this fruit invariably deteriorates when grown in this way, reverting to the small and inferior jungle forms, which if grafted or grafted varieties from warm climates are used, are given a thorough trial here, there is scarcely a doubt but that a few at least will be found which will be a success.
At the Saharanpur Botanical Gardens, in the northern provinces of India, sixty-five varieties are grown, all of 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 Industry is sending out grafted trees for an experimental planting this spring.
Professor C. F. Baker of Pomona College, an economic botanist of wide experience in tropical countries, has the greatest confidence in the future of this fruit in California, and believes it is only a matter of a few years until varieties which are now adapted to this climate. To hasten the day when good mangoes will be produced here in abundance, grafted trees of the best varieties as soon as possible to obtain ought to be planted at once in several different locations, both near the seacoast and in the interior valleys. So in conclusion, varieties suited to both locations would doubtless be found.
Very truly yours,
F. W. POPEONE.
Altadena, Calif., March 7, 1911.
THE WESTERN EMPIRE
JUNE, 1911.
AVOCADO NOMENCLATURE
PASADENA (Cal.) May 2.—[Editor for Western Empire.] The article on the Avocado in the Pacific Garden in the May issue is certainly very interesting, and I want to call your attention at once, to the use and fine qualities of this fruit. Since the breeding of the Avocado is in the hands of the Bureau of Plant Industry, the correct name, however, I would say, is not important in this connection, as this is a matter that should be brought to the attention at once, before an incorrect name becomes established. Many people think that there is only one correct name, viz., Palta. Not so. The Avocado is grown in many countries, and the name varies in many different languages. In almost every country it has a different name, and even in parts of the same country it will vary. The different types, the different names, and different types are called by different names in the same locality. Thus in Mexico, the large purple type is universally known as Ahuacate (the Spanish word for "all cuts"), while the large green type, although in some localities called as the purple ones, is known as Pera. The name Aguacate is used almost exclusively in Central America, but it is also true of some other Spanish-speaking countries. The name Pera is largely used in South America, as Mexico, and in many English speaking countries where the fruit is grown it is known principally as Avocado pear. In the British West Indian possessions as Avocater. The English name Alligator pear, which is a double corruption of the Spanish name, is also used. And these are by no means all of the names under which this fruit is known. Dr. David Fairchild, of the Bureau of Plant Industry, in his bulletin on the Avocado, says: "The multiplicity of names leads us to the question of which is the correct one, and which are we going to adopt? It would be impossible to say any one of them is the correct one, and the others are not, as every one is used in the country in which it is used. Like other fruits, the avocado has different names in different languages, and it is difficult to select the one that suits us best. The Bureau of Plant Industry has already done for us, having chosen the name Avocado pear, a name which was thought to be much better suited to an English speaking people than the many other Spanish names. As this name is euphonious, and in English it is easily pronounced, there is certainly no objection to its use, especially since it probably originally a corruption of the Spanish name Ahuacate. This latter name, however, has a great disadvantage, as it is probably more widely used than all the other names in the country where so many Spanish names are used as in California. It would not be wise to adopt such a name. The name is derived from the original Aztec name, which is in at least two different ways, Ahucate and Ahuacate, and pronounced the same, "Ah-wah-cate."
The same avocado is already in use in other parts of our own country, and is the name which is most generally accepted. It probably behooves us to adopt it even though there are many of us who would like to see the Spanish names retained. Whatever name we adopt, it should be a mile leading name. Alligator pear, for instance, is a name which is only the work of some ignorant person who could not pronounce the Spanish name. The term alligator is used to designate a reptile, and adding the name pear to this leads to the idea that the Avocado and the Ahuacate is only a variety of, or is related to, the common pear. Now the Avocado is a fruit which is about to become an important industry in California, and we should establish a correct name for it, and we should not allow it to become known as the Alligator pear, or any name, advertised under that name.
