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Rancho California, Al Muñecab (they say it was)
Dear Pablo:
Twas off the blue Canary Isles, one glorious summer day,
I sat upon the quarter deck and whiffed my cares away. Mighty nice trip,
from Sevilla by air across the Sahara, then back by SS Cabo San Roque,
out of Buenos Aires, bound for Genoa with about 500 pasajeros; First
class was sold out so we took the "Economia" (they dont call it 2nd,
which might offend the delicate sensibilidades of some gente). New ship,
air conditioned thruout, pretty fair grub, and only $22 from Tenerife
to Algeciras as against about $60 by air. Pretty cheap for a steamer
trip of about four days!
Canaries very interesting; puro southern California, except for
the occasional mangà tree and a coconut palm in full bearing in the
edge of Sta Cruz de Tenerife. "e spent 10 days in a perfectly lovely
little hotel at Puerto de la Cruz, next door to Orotava; five bucks
a day for the two of us, plus 15% service tax as usual, and the grub
was absolutely excellent. The Jardín de Acclimatación de Orotava,
2 kms from our hotel, is a classic. Founded in 1788 by Carlos III (and
some folks were heard to say it was the only good thing he ever did) and
continued without interruption to the present time; it is small and
crowded by some magnificent specimens - sure to delight the heart of
any real plantsman. We brought back 300 avocado seeds, West Indian race,
to grow here for rootstocks. There aren't too many avocados on Tenerife
(which is the largest and most interesting of the Islands); perhaps
2000 in all, and practically no orchards, but one man has 110 grafted
Fuertes and another has just planted 200, mostly Fuerte. We all cuss
out Fuerte for its uncertain production but when we get through cussing
we just go ahead and plant more Fuertes. Cavendish bananas are the thing
in the Islands; they ship 300,000 tons every yr. If a fellow only
has a city lot, 50 x 100 ft, the rear 50 are in Cavendish. Most of
the land beautifully terraced and can you believe it, they build walls
of dressed stone, 10 ft high, around plantings of half an acre or so,
to prevent wind damage. The most intensive banana culture in the world.
Now we are back at base, to find yrs of 17 and 24 pxmo ppdo, and
a lot of other mail. Some of wh will probably alter our plans for an
early return to the New World. Salvat Editores of Barcelona are urging
me to prepare the Manual Práctico de Fruticultura Tropical, wh I would
like to do. There is nothing in Spanish on the subject; I just have
to lift most of it out of Manual of Trop and Subtrop Fruits, and it
would probably be the standard work for Spanish America for the next
25 yrs. And I am sort of cooling off about the offer from El Salvador,
to come there and take over the Directorship of their new Agrl school.
I don't need the money - the salary wouldn't be terribly high anyway.
And govt jobs in Latin America have oftentimesplanted problems, as we
say; políticos of the opposition are going to ask they hire a
gringo when there so many excellent nacionales available, and why do
they pay such high salaries to foreigners, and they would probably
capitalise to the maximum my every mistake - and who does not make
them? Not to mention that I am a little tooold to tackle many new
jobs. One of these days I may wake up in the morning dead, as we say
in Spanish. Incidentally my old boss Arthur Pollan, of whom I was
very fond (he was a straight shooter, tough at times, but a straight
shooter) retired a few yrs ago; he kept coming to the office however,
until one day recently when he was sitting there, talking to some of
