702 JOURNAL, BOMB AY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XV1I1. 



appearance until once a year they are cleared away. To look their best, date 

 trees should be seen by moonlight, or with a back-ground of red sunset glow : 

 they then become poetical and romantic, and imbued with the mysterious charm 

 of the East. 



There is a mutual dependence between the date palm and the human race, 

 and to ensure a good crop of fruit a considerable amount of labour is needed, 

 which the Arabs, lazy .as they are, cannot make over to the women. When the 

 plants are young they want plentiful watering and manuring, and wrapping up in 

 winter to protect them from the frost. The trees are of opposite sexes, and 

 every spring the flowers of the females have to be artificially pollinated : this is 

 done by cutting off a branch of the male flower and carefully shaking it over the 

 females. At this time the insignificant white flowers which have just burst 

 from their sheaths are scarcely seen from below as they stand straight up in 

 spiky clusters : about June men climb the trees and disentangle the bunches 

 from the leaves, bending them till they hang down quite clear. The dates now 

 look like small green beads, strung at wide intervals on green stalks. As they 

 grow larger they change in colour, the stalks turning yellow first until in 

 August they hang in immense bunches of vivid gold, about six or eight on 

 every tree. Picking is no light work, and continues through most of August and 

 September. The Arab climbs the tree very cleverly by means of a sling passed 

 round the trunk and behind his back. He presses his feet against the tree 

 leaning his body outwards, and almost walks up the trunk, jerking the sling up 

 a few inches at a time. The extreme roughness of the bark prevents the rope 

 from slipping, and dangerous as the operation looks, it is really quite safe. 

 When the man gets to the top he sits comfortably on the sling, and picks the 

 dates that have turned brown, first filling a round tray-like basket that he has 

 carried up on his back, and putting any that are over into his capacious shirt 

 front. As the dates ripen gradually this process has to be repeated often, until 

 the bunches dwindle and finally disappear. With the commoner kinds of dates 

 so much trouble is not taken : the bunches are cut off directly they begin to 

 turn brown, and are hung up in the shade for the later dates to ripen. The 

 final operation for which human aid is called in is the cutting off of the dead 

 leaves, which takes place at the end of the cold weather. 



Believing as they do that the palm tree is under the special protection of 

 Providence, the Baghdadis consider that the still breathless heat of the end of 

 August is expressly intended for the benefit of the fruit. Some years ago a 

 Wali of Baghdad was complaining of the heat, and received the usual resigned 

 answer, "God sends this weather to ripen the dates." "Is that the reason ?" 

 replied the Wali, " then cut all the date trees down ! " 



Date trees can be propagated by means of seed and off-shoots, but the former 

 is an unsatisfactory method ; as the sexes are likely to be equal in trees raised 

 from seeds, and cannot be determined for six or seven years, when the flowers 

 begin to form. As the male trees bear no fruit and two or three are quite 

 enough for a hundred females, this causes waste of time, ground and trouble 



