viii DATES IN NOETH AMEEICA 93 



plant shoots up. To bring over a sucker means a 

 great deal more trouble and expense. 



For fourteen years, from 1876 to 1890, different 

 people went on trying to bring over suckers. 

 They were brought over, a good many of them, 

 but all sorts of accidents befell many. Some were 

 washed out of the ground by the great floods of 

 the Colorado river ; some died because the winters 

 in the places where they were planted were too cold ; 

 some were neglected by the people to whom they 

 were sent, who thought the plants more trouble than 

 they were worth ; some were carefully tended, and 

 then turned out to be nearly useless, because the 

 people from whom they were bought had not 

 chosen to send the best kinds. 



But even with all these accidents a few plants 

 survived and did well in certain places. There were 

 enough of these to prove to intelligent people that the 

 date-palm could be made to grow in the western parts 

 of North America, and that all that was wanted 

 was patience", perseverance, and skill. Therefore, 

 in 1899, the Bureau of Plant Industry took up 

 the matter seriously. An expert was despatched 

 to North Africa to choose, buy, and ship offshoots 

 of the best kinds of date-palms, and at the same 

 time to learn all he could about methods of culti- 

 vation as practised in the regions where the best 

 dates are grown. It took about three years to 



