Roberts: The Founders of the Art of Breeding 



101 



fruit-bearing, and that the product of 

 the sterile ( male ) trees was needed in 

 order to insure the bearing of fruit by 

 the other (female) trees. 



Kazwini (5), the Arabic writer on 

 natural history, says of the date, "It 

 is created out of the same substances 

 as Adam, and is the only tree that is 

 artificially fertilized." The seeds of 

 the date produce about half and half, 

 male and female trees. The female 

 trees are wind pollinated, and there 

 would, therefore, easily be enough male 

 trees to fertilize them under natural 

 wild conditions. However, under cul- 

 tivation, the growing of such a large 

 proportion of non-fruit-bearing or male 

 trees, would be a very wasteful use of 

 the land, and we find that as early as 

 Babylonian and Assyrian times it was 

 discovered that the pollen from a small 

 number of male trees could be made to 

 suffice for fertilizing a considerable 

 number of female trees, by substituting 

 hand pollination for the natural method. 

 At the present time, according to 

 Swingle ( 10) the proportion used in 

 planting is about one male to one hun- 

 dred female trees. 



VARIATION AND SELECTION OF DATE PALM 



It was soon learned that, when the 

 seeds from the fruits thus obtained 

 by fertilization were planted, the ofif- 

 spring could no more be depended upon 

 to bear fruits like those of the mother 

 tree than can the seedlings of our mod- 

 ern "budded" peaches, apples, or pears. 

 As a matter of fact, the seedlings com- 

 ing from any given variety of date show 

 a very wide range of variation, and it 

 is said that the original parent type 

 seldom reappears among the seed- 

 hngs (10). 



This diversity of type among seed- 

 ling dates has led to the establishment 

 of a great number of varieties in cul- 

 tivation. From four cases of the Sa- 

 hara alone, over four hundred distinct 

 varieties of date palms are reported, 

 which vary greatly in the size, shape 

 and flavor of the fruits, some being 

 round, some oval, others slender and 

 elongated. In color the fruits vary 

 from light brown to deep black. Some 



varieties ripen dry, and furnish a staple 

 food product useful for long journeys. 

 Others are so soft and syrupy that they 

 must be eaten fresh. 



Thus we see that, through the me- 

 dium of the date palm, man, in one of 

 his earliest homes, learned two great 

 facts upon which all plant improvement 

 rests — the fact of variation, which 

 makes selection possible, and the fact 

 of plant sex, upon which "plant breed- 

 ing" in the true sense is based. 



DISCOVERY OF SEX IN PLANTS THE 

 LESSON THAT WAS LOST 



We have seen that the Babylonians 

 understand that the date palms were of 

 two sorts, male and female by nature, 

 and that they utilized this knowledge 

 in a practical way by resorting to arti- 

 ficial pollination of the female trees in 

 order to make them bear more abun- 

 dantly. We also know that the Arabs 

 have continued this practice uninter- 

 ruptedly to the present time. Indeed 

 they seem to have had a distinct under- 

 standing that the date palm possessed 

 sex in the same sense in which it exists 

 in the animal kingdom. Kazwini, who 

 died about 682 A. D., and to whom ref- 

 erence has already been made, says 

 plainly in his book : "Of the marvels of 

 Nature, and of the Singularities of 

 Creating Things," the date has a strik- 

 ing resemblance to man, through the 

 beauty of its erect and slender figure, 

 its division into two distinct sexes, and 

 the property, which is peculiar to it, of 

 being fecundated by a sort of union." 



However, the lesson which the date 

 palm might have taught men — that all 

 plants possess sex, and hence that 

 breeding can be conducted with them 

 as with animals — appears to have been 

 lost. Even in those regions where the 

 date was grown, the idea which the 

 long-continued practice of artificial pol- 

 lination ought to have suggested — that 

 it was possible to breed and improve 

 other plants in like manner — seems 

 never to have arisen. One would natu- 

 rally suppose that the ancient Babylon- 

 ians, having learned the art of artificial 

 crossing in the case of one plant, would 

 have applied the same process to others. 



