IN CALIFORNIA 243 



the palm tree:" and it was with branches of the 

 date palm that the people saluted our Saviour upon 

 his triumphal journey to Jerusalem. The cultiva- 

 tion of this tree in California, while undertaken in 

 a limited way by the Franciscan Missionaries, has 

 assumed commercial importance only in the last few 

 years, due to the discovery that its fruit can be suc- 

 cessfully matured in certain sections of the Colorado 

 Desert notably a narrow depression somewhat be- 

 low sea level in the desert portion of Riverside 

 County, known as the Coachella Valley. The cul- 

 tivation of the date there has now passed beyond 

 the experimental stage, and considerable areas are 

 being given over to the planting of a large assort- 

 ment of varieties, the offsets for which have been 

 secured from the groves of Arabia and Africa. At 

 Mecca by the Salton Sea, for instance, or at Indio, 

 both on the line of the Southern Pacific Railway, 

 the observant traveler may catch sight, even out of 

 the car window, of the evidences of this thriving 

 young industry in its various stages from the cul- 

 tivation of the small plants set in rows like so much 

 corn, to the bearing trees heavy in autumn with 

 golden clusters of fruit an industry that carries 

 the imagination back to the genesis of man, for the 

 Arab tradition is that the first date palm was made 



