92 TILLERS OF THE GROUND CHAP. 



The second one is a little more difficult to 

 understand. Some of us have been shown how 

 fruit trees are grown in this country, and we know 

 that gardeners who want fine apples never think of 

 planting apple pips, even from a very beautiful 

 apple. They take a bud from a good apple tree, 

 and graft it on another young tree, from which all 

 the branches have been cut off. The bud grows 

 on the stock, as it is called, and produces a tree 

 exactly like its parent. If we ask the gardener 

 why he does not just sow the seeds, he will tell us 

 that the seeds do not " come true " ; that is, they 

 do not grow into trees producing the same good 

 fruit as the parent. It is much the same with the 

 date. Date seeds do not always grow into plants 

 which produce the same good fruit as the parent 

 trees ; but a sucker taken from the base of the 

 parent will produce exactly the same kind of fruit. 

 This the Arabs long ago discovered. 



When it became clear to the Americans that 

 they would never get very good date-palms until 

 they brought over suckers from good kinds, they 

 proceeded to try to do this. But this is not nearly 

 so. easy as growing the plants from the seed. It 

 is only necessary in that case to take a date out of 

 one of the frilled boxes in which we get them, 

 eat the date, plant the stone, keep it as warm as 

 possible in its pot, and by and by the little date 



