THE DATE. 355 



difference in the fructification of the wild date and 

 the cultivated, though both are precisely the same 

 species. Wild dates impregnate themselves ; but the 

 cultivated ones do not, without the assistance of art. 

 Theophrastus and Pliny mention this fact; and in 

 every plantation of cultivated dates, one part of the 

 labour of the cultivator consists in collecting the 

 flowers of the male date, climbing to the top of the 

 female with them, and dispersing the pollen on the 

 germs of the dates. So essential is this operation, 

 that though the male and female trees are growing 

 in the same plantation, the crop fails if it be not per- 

 formed. A very remarkable instance of this is related 

 by Delile, in his Egyptian Flora. The date-trees in 

 the neighbourhood of Cairo did not yield a crop in 

 the year 1800. The French and Turkish troops 

 having been fighting all over the country in the 

 spring, field labour of every kind was suspended, and 

 amongst the rest, the fecundation of the date. The 

 female date-trees put forth their branches of flowers 

 as usual, but not one of them ripened into edible 

 fruit. The pollen of the male trees appears to have 

 been scattered over the country by the winds; and, 

 as it had not been sufficiently abundant for reaching 

 the germs so as to ensure fructification, an almost 

 universal failure was the consequence. The Persians, 

 according to the elder Michaux, who travelled in the 

 country, were more provident than the Egyptians. 

 In a civil war, which was attended with all the ruin- 

 ous effects of anarchy, the male date-trees of a whole 

 province were cut down by the invading troops, that 

 the fructification of this necessary of life might be 

 stopped. But the inhabitants, apprehending such 

 a result, had been careful previously to gather the 

 pollen, which they preserved in close vessels; and 

 thus they were enabled to impregnate their trees when 

 the country was freed from the destroying army. It 



