viii DATES IN NORTH AMERICA 101 



flower clusters. The Arab, who is lithe and supple, 

 climbs up the tall stems with his hands and his 

 bare feet, holding the bunch of pollen flowers and 

 the fibre in his mouth. Quite often he has to 

 ascend the same tree several times, as all the 

 flower clusters do not appear at once, and each one 

 must be fertilised separately. So clever is he, 

 however, and so well have his eyes been trained, 

 that he rarely misses a palm, hardly even a flower 

 cluster. Each tree in full bearing is allowed to 

 produce eight to twelve bunches of fruit ; that is, 

 eight to twelve flower clusters must be fertilised. 

 How much tree-climbing then must go on each 

 year before the 500,000 palm trees of Biskra are 

 fertilised each year ? Perhaps, when the Americans 

 have grown dates for some time, they will learn 

 how to do the pollinating more simply than the 

 Arabs do it, but that will take some learning. 



With all these difficulties is there hope that 

 dates can be grown profitably in North America ? 

 Well, it seems that in parts of California and 

 Arizona, especially, dates can be grown more 

 profitably than any other plant, because in these 

 places we have the hot dry summer which is 

 necessary to ripen the fruit ; the water can be 

 brought to the roots by irrigation, and this water 

 and the soil often contain so much alkali that not 

 many other plants will grow, whereas the date will 



