STATUS OF DATE CULTURE IN SOUTHWESTERN STATES. 5 



date of great promise, but it is as yet doubtful whether dry dates can 

 be marketed advantageously on a large scale without an expensive 

 publicity campaign. 



It must be clearly understood that to plant other varieties that 

 are new or inadequately tested involves a considerable element of risk. 

 The fact that they appear satisfactory in the Old World deserts is no 

 guarantee that they will grow, bear, and ripen fruit properly in the 

 Southwest or that their fruit will prove acceptable to American buyers. 

 Any jilanting of a variety on a large scale before it has been thoroughly 

 tested must be considered as a speculation, since the planter runs the 

 risk of finding out that the variety is unsuited to his conditions. 

 Those having the means and the interest to test out such little-known 

 varieties under as many di:fferent soil and climatic conditions as 

 possible will render a valuable service to their community. 



It would be much safer for those who expect to grow dates on a 

 commercial scale to limit themselves at first to those varieties that 

 have been tested by the Department of Agriculture and to learn all 

 phases of the culture, curing, packing, and marketing of the fruit of 

 one or more of the standard varieties. This is the best possible 

 preparation for the efficient culture of new sorts when they have 

 been tested enough in the Government or other adequately super- 

 vised testing gardens to render it desirable to test them on a com- 

 mercial scale in private culture. 



Much misinformation has been spread in regard to seedlmg dates. 

 For some years the Department of Agriculture has been furnishing 

 gratis seeds of choice dates to bona fide date growers so that the 

 latter could at slight expense familiarize themselves with the culture 

 of date palms. Up to June, 1911, imported offshoots were offered 

 as a bonus to those who set out seedling dates in prescribed form. 

 In this way it was possible for a farmer to learn date culture and 

 even to obtain offshoots of choice imported varieties at little or no 

 cash outlay, since it was possible to set out a seedling date orchard 

 by plowing up and planting to dates narrow strips in fields planted to 

 alfalfa or other field crops. 



The quality of the seed distributed by the Department of Agricul- 

 ture has steadily improved as it became possible to use pedigreed 

 male palms m pollmation of the date palms that furnished the seed. 

 It is hoped in the case of the Deglet Noor that the Department will 

 be able in a few years to supply seed of the best attainable breeding 

 quality — i. e., giving the highest attainable percentage of seedlings of 

 the Deglet Noor type. 



Every grower of seedling dates has a chance of originating new and 

 superior varieties, though it must be said that only a very smaU per- 

 centage of the seedling dates are good enough to warrant propagating 

 the variety. Already a number of valuable seedlmg dates have been 



[Clr. 129] 



