72 DATEGROWING 



tiously watches the offshoots as they are brought in, 

 and if he calls a council of his Arab visitors from time 

 to time and asks them to name the offshoots they see 

 in his packing yard, he has little chance of being 

 defrauded. As for the substitution of male for 

 female shoots, a trick that was practiced upon the 

 United States government in some of its first importa- 

 tions, it is hardly possible in the present state of 

 knowledge, and is explainable only by the fact that 

 these importations were secured at second hand, 

 through consuls and others who had no idea of what 

 a date palm was. The male offshoot, by its vigorous 

 growth and sturdy aspect, and its larger number of 

 closely packed leaves, is almost always distinguishable 

 even to the beginner. 



Seedling palms have also been sold as offshoots 

 on some occasions, but it is hardly conceivable that 

 a careful buyer could be fooled in this way, for 

 such a buyer inspects personally the base of every 

 offshoot as it is brought before him, throwing out all 

 those in which symptoms of decay appear; and he can 

 see at a glance whether the plant has been cut from a 

 tree or grown in the ground from a seed. I have never 

 met an Arab who tried to foist such a thing on me, 

 and I doubt if they would try it, unless they found a 

 man packing offshoots without any inspection. The 

 natives of India appear to be unusually clever at 

 such trickery. Milne says:* 



" Fraudulent people often cut a piece off the lower 

 end of a seedling to make it appear like an offshoot. 

 A seedling plant usually has a straight stem, however, 

 while that of an offshoot usually has a slight bend at 



*Milne, D. "Date Cultivation in the Panjab/' p. 11. Lahore, 

 1911. 



