102 



knows very well from experience that pollen readily becomes 

 mouldy and that it will "cake" and become "sour" unless it is 

 properh" dried and stored and so he pays special attention to what 

 he considers to be the best means of jireser^ing its vitalit\'. To 

 him the question of how long this pollen will then keep is one of 

 special interest. It is in fact a matter of vital importance to the 

 date-growing industr>'. 



It is a tradition of the Arabs, going back to remote time, that 

 the pollen of the male date tree remains potent from year to year 



Figure i. The "Gold Dust" of the date industry. When properly tlried 

 and stored date pollen remains viable for at least several weeks. This quart 

 jar (here reduced in size) contains 1922 pollen which gave no germination 

 in the tests a year later. From this jar came the apparently dead pollen 

 shown in lower part of Plate 290. 



or even for several years and in times of scarcity of new pollen it 

 has been their practice to use old pollen in (he pollination of the 

 female flowers. Rehing on these Old World traditions and 

 practices, the growers of dates in (^alifornia and Arizona have 

 believed that when the pollen of dates is properly dried and 

 stored it remains \ial)lc for several years and they ha\e repeat- 

 edly used such pollen early in the season with ai)parcntl\' good 

 results in certain cases. They have not questioned the results 

 of this practice and ha\c, therefore, not felt it necessary- to direct 

 special attention to the growing of early-flowering males which 



