41 8 THE COUNTRY OF THE DATE TREE. 



the oases of that region its culture is the main industry, 

 indeed " this single tree may be said to have peopled 

 the desert, and without it the tribes of the Sahara 

 would cease to be. " * 



There are said to be over seventy varieties of dates, 

 of which Count D'Escayrac de Lauture enumerates 

 the Arabic names of forty-eight kinds. The geograph- 

 ical limits of the date palm in the northern hemi- 

 sphere are fixed by the same authority as lying 

 between the i2th and 37th parallels of latitude, f 

 elsewhere it is an exotic. The crest of^the full-grown 

 tree attains a height of fifty or more feet; and it is 

 usually propagated by suckers which spring from the 

 roots of old trees and stumps in great numbers, but 

 the date will also grow freely from the stone but the 

 wild date is the result, and few of the trees produced 

 from seed are worth cultivation new varieties of value, 

 however, are sometimes thus obtained. 



The young trees become fruitful at about eight years 

 of age. These palms flower in March and April, and 

 the date harvest is gathered in October and November; 

 it forms both the principal food and wealth of the 

 desert tribes. The gardens where the date trees grow 

 have, as we have stated, to be constantly watered, to 

 mature the fruit ; this is done by a system of small 

 trenches, and banks of earth, formed round each tree, 

 to retain the water and protect its roots. The dates are 

 produced in bunches of forty or fifty or more like large 

 bunches of grapes. When soft and freshly gathered they 



* Du Spitzberg au Sahara, par Charles Martins, p. 567. 

 j* Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture 

 Paris, 1853, p. 5. 

 Ibid., p. 7. 



