MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 763 



No. XXIII.— CULTIVATION OF THE EDIBLE DATE PALM 

 PHCENIX DACTYLIFERA IN SOUTH INDIA. 



(With a plate.) 



At the present time when eflbrts are being made to develop the indigen- 

 ous resources of India, the following account of the successful cultivation 

 of the date palm in the Central Jail at Trichinopoly may be of interest to 

 members of the Society. 



In the article on the date palm by Father E. Blatter, in Vol. XX of our 

 Society's Journal, it is said at page 681, that the tree has been grown in 

 the Deccan, but there is no notice of cultivation in any region to the South 

 of that. It was therefore quite a surprise to me to find a flourishing grove 

 of these palms growing vigorously inside the walls of the Trichy Jail. 

 The following account is from information supplied to me by the late 

 Mr. R. Shubrick, who for many years was the Superintendent of the 

 Central Jail, one of the largest of the prisons in the Madras Presidency. 

 The photographs sent herewith were got from him also, and show the results 

 of his experiment very well indeed. 



Mr. Shubrick told me that he got the first idea of date growing from the 

 Boer prisoners camp near Trichy. It seems that the Boers w^ere very fond 

 of dates and were in the habit of spitting the stones out over the verandah. 

 These stones germinated freely, and it appears that the only remains of the 

 prisoners camp is the numerous date trees that have grown from these ejected 

 stones. One is inclined to ask whether the date groyes of Sind did notarise 

 from the date stones spat out by the soldiers of Alexander the Great. 



In the autumn of 1900 Mr. Shubrick bought a box of " Muscat " dates 

 from the Army and Navy Stores in Bombay, and encouraged by their 

 freshness sowed some of the seeds in a large flower pot. These germinated 

 80 freely that the rest were sowed in a seedbed in the jail where they 

 safely passed through the hot weather of 1901. In the rains they were 

 planted out in front of one of the rows of cells which sheltered them from 

 the S. W. winds. They were planted in pits three foot square and ten feet 

 apart. In 1902 another row was planted making, in all, some 70 trees. 



Nearly the whole of these trees are still alive and flourishing, and the 

 few that died were replaced by seedlings sown in the pit direct, as it was 

 found by experience that a seed bed was not really necessary. The time 

 of year for sowing appears to be immaterial, as seeds do equally well sown 

 in March or July at Trichinopoly. " All the cultivation that was given to 

 the plants was that the soil round them was kept loose and clean and that 

 during the hot and dry weather, the plants were watered daily. About the 

 third year the young trees change colour and become a greenish grey. As 

 the leaves at the base become dry they need lopping." The trees appear 

 to be hardy. 



In February 1907 three trees came into flower of which one was a male. 

 Not knowing at that time that artificial fertilisation was necessary the 

 fruit came to nothing and by May had disappeared In February 1908 

 seven trees flowered, of which four Avere males. Mr. Sampson, the Dy. 

 Director of Agriculture, saw them in flower and demonstrated the proper 

 method of performing artificial fertilisation on one of the trees, by tying 

 one of the male spikes among the female ones. A few days later. Colonel 

 Bamber, I. M.S., saw the trees and under his advice another was similarly 

 fertilised. Both these trees produced good fruit which ripened in June. 

 The third unfertilised tree produced imperfect fruit, " inasmuch as all 

 three ovules have survived, while in fertilised trees one ovule survives at 

 the expense of the other two. This fruit is only ripening now, July, and 

 is seedless and poor." 



