Hunt Institute Archives Text Discovery Platform

Page transcription

Antigua, Guatemala, 20 Jan 1959

Dr Wm C Cooper,
Weslaco, Texas.

Dear Bill:

Just to let you know that we are once more in the New World,
and to thank you once more for the cooperation you gave us on the job
in southern Spain. We were able to establish more than 20 avocado
varieties at Rancho California, but I am not sure that all of them
will survive because of the trouble they are having with what I am
convinced is a lime-induced iron chlorosis. The soils at Rancho
California are very fine silt loams. They have a pH of about 8.4 and 8.5
due to Calcium carbonate (on the slopes of the valley, you just have
to put a little water with the decomposed rock and you have the finest
mortar in the world.) When they irrigate the valley floor, where
the avocados are planted, they dump on about 6 acre inches of water
so as to get through in a hurry. In the low spots water stands as
much as 24 to 36 hrs after an irrigation. I did my best to discourage
over-irrigation of the avocado plantings, and I hope we will see some
results. There is nothing wrong with the soil - analyses made in
Florida established, that I believe - except that the texture is so
fine and the soil so alkaline that the iron gets tied up and the trees
go chlorotic and many of the very young ones, those in the nursery,
just simply pass out. I am sure we can establish good avocado
orchards in Almuñécar when we get those lads to understand that they
must have more air and less water in their soils.

We are flying up to California this week, before we settle down
here to write a Manual Práctico de Fruticultura Tropical for Salvat
Editores of Barcelona. No more books on tropical fruits in English
for me, you boys know so much more than I now do that I wouldn't dare
step out; but I think a practical book for Latin America may be worth
while so I am going to tackle it. It will cost me money; the pictures
and the typing and even the paper will outweigh the price they are
going to pay me per printed page, but that doesn't bother me. I would
like to leave behind me a practical guide which will serve for about
25 years, here in tropical America.

Incidentally, veneer grafting is the thing for the tropics and
subtropics. Almost fool proof. I believe all of the varieties of
which you sent us budwood stuck alright, and most of them will sur-
vive if those lads will quit dumping those six acre inches of water
on the land so they can hurry home and get some more bread dipped in
olive oil. Six acre inches of water might not do any harm on Johnny
Lynch's South Campus, but it simply ain't the thing for those tight
soils of the Mediterranean coast. But Bill, what a climate for sub-
tropicals! They don't realize what they have. Let's go over there and
buy about 50 margals of good haza (I guess I have got you, now) and
grow avocados; they sell for the equivalent of a dollar a kilogram,
right on the tree. Trouble is, there aren't many trees.

Ever yours,