90 TILLEES OF THE GEOUND CHAP. 



of the Mediterranean basin have grown dates for 

 thousands of years, and they have acquired a kind of 

 skill which it seems difficult for other peoples to 

 acquire. We find, therefore, that, despite all their 

 perseverance, knowledge, and cleverness, the people 

 in the warmer parts of North America have taken 

 a very long time to introduce the date successfully. 

 It seems probable that they have succeeded now, 

 but it is only after many attempts. 



The first attempt was made by the Spanish 

 missionaries, who introduced many useful plants. 

 They planted in California, during the eighteenth 

 and the early part of the nineteenth century, date 

 stones, brought either directly from Spain, or ob- 

 tained from palms grown in Mexico from Spanish 

 seed. The seeds so planted grew into fine trees, 

 the descendants of which are still living and form 

 great ornaments to the landscape of Southern 

 California. This first planting had, however, several 

 great drawbacks. In the first place, it was found 

 that trees grown from seed consist in nearly equal 

 numbers of pollen-bearers and fruit-bearers that 

 is, about half the trees bear no fruit. Secondly, 

 Spanish dates are not very good ; we shall see 

 directly that dates grown from seed are not often 

 good. Therefore, though about half of the Spanish 

 trees bore fruit, yet very few indeed of these had 

 fruit which Americans think worth eating. 



