THE DATE PALM. ] 453 



leaving a long stump of the leaf-stalk to which the bunch 

 of elates is afterwards secured to prevent it from giving 

 way under its own weight. The female flower blade 

 already fully developed, is laid open by a longitudinal 

 cut with a knife, or with a sharpened date stone, and 

 one or two sprigs of male flowers are inserted into the 

 cleft. If the sheath of the female flower blade has split 

 and the flowers have pushed out or are in bloom, one or 

 two sprigs of male flowers are tied over the female flower 

 bunch with a bulrush, or with a palm leaflet, or with 

 some other tyiag material which easily rots and breaks 

 off as soon as the bunch begins to develop into fruit. 

 The operation is repeated for each female bunch as it 

 reaches the proper stage of development. One or two 

 bunches of male flowers may be dried in the shade, and 

 reserved for the pollination of late female bunches, and 

 are even kept over perfectly dry until next year, to be 

 at hand for the pollination of very early female bunches 

 which may develop when fresh male flowers are not yet 

 available. 



Our dates hardly ever attain complete maturity, but 

 half ripe dates, in October or November, are cooked in 

 various ways or made into pastries, with or without the 

 addition of sugar. By cooking, their astringency entirely 

 disappears, but it is not possible to keep these dates for 

 more than a few days after they are picked from the 

 tree, as they are liable to turn sour and to become a 

 fertile breeding ground of maggots of several species of 

 flies and other diptera. In Tripoli the bunches of elates 

 which owing to vicissitudes of weather fail to ripen 

 on the tree, are cut and hung in a room, where they are 

 sprayed lightly with vinegar once or twice, and protected 

 by a cloth, and in a few days the dates become perfectly 

 ripe, but they do not keep well and must be consumed as 

 early as possible. This method of completing the process 

 of ripening has been tried here with fairly good results. 



