COMMERCIAL DATE GROWING 55 



of Plant Industry Bui. No. 54, Washington, 1903, 

 p. 20: 



"There are thousands of seedlings called 'degal', 

 but these form a small proportion of the plantations 

 and are recognized as bearing inferior dates. The 

 market demand is for special uniform qualities, and 

 these seedling dates are excluded because of their 

 variability." 



Ibid., p. 21: "There are hundreds of varieties of 

 dates in the Persian Gulf region, nearly every seedling 

 being more or less different from its neighbor." 



D. Milne, Economic Botanist to Government of 

 the Panjab, in charge of date culture there and the 

 recognized modern authority on the subject in India, 

 in a letter to me, dated October 24, 1912: 



"Regarding propagation of date palms by seeds 

 as compared to propagation by suckers, there is in my 

 judgment no room for two opinions. I wish you had 

 had time to go to the western side of the Panjab with 

 me. There are many excellent examples there of the 

 stupidity of the propagation of date palms by seed. 

 There I could have shown you thousands of date 

 palms grown from seed, and which produce dates 

 only fit for feeding to goats. Growing side by side 

 with these are date trees propagated from suckers, 

 and which yield most excellent dates. We have also 

 here trees grown from the seeds of excellent Arabian 

 and Egyptian fruits, and these in many cases yield 

 fruits of the most inferior kinds." 



Dr. L. Trabut, botanist of the government of 

 Algeria, and the recognized authority on North 

 African botany and horticulture, in written statement 

 given to me at Algiers, May 23, 1913: 



