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Interview-10

Ja--What crop could be introduced in Guatemala that would accomplish alot?

Po--You be the pioneer and tell me and I will do it and make the money. It's hard to say what crop will be the most valuable in the future. I hope you make a lot of money. We can't expect that these fruit crops we're working on now will be too important because they are limited in their area, very definitely. We can't expect to export apples in any form to the rest of the world. We will probably supply Central America with apples and apple products, and we will probably supply certain areas with canned fruits--apples, pears, peaches. We're working right now on getting a peach that will look just like a Del Monte California cling peach. We've got it really now, but not commercially.

Ja--What kind of peach was it called? What's the name of it?

Po--The varieties change from 5 years to 5 years in California, but what we're working on here we have. See we can't go to California cling peaches here so we're picking out our seedlings here which are old Spanish seedlings, and we have them just as good as far as you can see and then eat, but we don't know yet which one of those seedlings were good and that's what the government's working on now and I'm trying to help, and then we will graft these varieties commercially on an orchard basis.

Ja--In what departments will these grow in mainly?

Po--Mainly in Quetzaltenango, Totonicapan, Solola, Chimaltenango, and Sacatepequez, and I forgot 'Quiche' is one of the biggest. Quiche has a lot of high land, by the way, there's a department that's got a lot of future too. Now I am a little bit enthusiastic about the future of two departments here--agriculture at Quiche and Petén. Quiche has been slow in developing because it doesn't have the nice large area of flat land. You see that Tecpán plain, that is the finest piece of land in Guatemala, I was just over there last Friday. For temperate zone agriculture, for cereals, and then you have that lovely Quetzaltenango Valley that is grand. But Quiche is mostly rough you know. The thing is we've got to learn to use those hillside lands. That's what they've done in Asia. We are going to have to terrace a lot of those lands. We're going to have to use some fertilizer. And when we do--those Indians are terracing a little already, with little contour terraces made with a hoe. Eventually, I think this idea about we're going to starve to death, I don't fall for that, because we've just got to work harder. Look what they did in Peru, those Incas around Cuzco. Look what they've done in the Philippines with terracing lands, and elsewhere in Central Asia. We are going to have to terrace these Latin American and Tropical American mountainsides. We can do it, but it's hard work. We will have to terrace them by building up stone walls, we have plenty of stones. Stone walls and terraces like they built in Peru 15 to 20 feet wide. Then maybe improving the soil on those terraces. It takes work, but we can do it. I think the future of Quiche lies in terracing, eventually terracing those mountains. Right now of course, we don't terrace them. It's a curious thing, that these volcanic soils don't erode like the clay soils do. You look at those wonderful mountainsides in Quiche and at Quetzaltenango, Totonicapan where they're planting corn and wheat. They have been planting those