THE DATE PALM COUNTRY 81 



means frostless. Evidently, propagation of these few 

 varieties will eventually establish an industry which 

 can furnish dates for home use, at least. 



Saharanpur is in Northern India, but the region 

 is not typically desert, even without the summer 

 rains. iVt Trichinopoli in Southern India, in a 

 genuinely tropical district, success has also been 

 obtained in an experimental way, principally with 

 seedlings; the superintendent reports* that three 

 varieties of good dates ripened in 1908. And at 

 Bangalore, Lucknow, and many other places in India 

 resultshave been obtained which, while far from making 

 commercial production of dates an immediate possi- 

 bility, show that the field is by no means hopeless, 

 that success depends only on finding suitable varieties, 

 and that such varieties can be found. 



In the tropical island of Zanzibar, too, experi- 

 ments have been successful enough to warrant the 

 government in importing large quantities of offshoots 

 from Oman and Busreh. And, closer home, dates 

 have been ripened in the West Indies, where seedling 

 Tafilalets have proved particularly interesting.! 



As regards extreme of cold, the date palm has 

 shown itself remarkably resistant. In central Balu- 

 chistan and the highlands of Persia the culture is 

 profitable even where the cold is prolonged as well as 

 severe; in other regions, where more detailed observa- 

 tions have been possible, it has been shown that a 

 palm under proper conditions may withstand a 

 temperature as low as 5° F. without injury. The 

 severe freeze of January, 1913, in the southwestern 



*In a letter to the Reporter on Economic Products, Calcutta. 



fJones, Joseph, in Agricultural News, p. 324, Oct. 19, 1907: 

 "The fruit (in Dominica) rip>ened well, there being little loss through 

 decay or fermentation." 



