SOIL AND CLIMATE. 53 



the fruits to decay and drop from the trees before they are ready 

 for harvesting ; also possibly in other ways. As already stated, 

 the world's fruit developing and ripening season may be taken 

 as extending between 1st May and 31st October, and the most 

 critical stage is the ripening period. Excluding special cases the 

 ripening periods may be taken roughly as September-October in 

 Mesopotamia, Algeria, Tunis, and Egypt ; and July-August in 

 the Punjab. The greater heat in early summer probably hastens 

 the ripening season here. From figures for Tozer and Basra 

 we may conclude that a humidity of 60 approximately in the fruit 

 ripening season will not hinder the culture of the finest dates, 

 while most excellent dates are ripened in the Island of Bahrein, 

 where the humidity is recorded as 73 in September and 76 in 

 October. The poorer quality of fruits got at some of the date- 

 growing places mentioned in the above tables, for example at 

 Gafsa, Port Said, and Alexandria, seems therefore to be due to 

 the lower temperatures at these places. I believe also that if 

 readings were taken in many plantations in Egypt in which trees, 

 which annually yield good crops of fruits, stand in a sea of water 

 while the Nile is in full flood in September-October, the humidity 

 figures would be much higher than those recorded above for the 

 stations there. 



The same is probably true of Basra in the Persian 

 Gulf, which grows large quantities of excellent dates. Even 

 the very high figures given above for Bahrein apparently under- 

 state the case. Major Keys, Political Agent there, in reply 

 to a letter of mine enquiring regarding date culture in the island, 

 informs me that he believes the humidity in the date groves to 

 be considerably in excess of that reported from the observatory, 

 as the observatory is at Manama which is at a much higher 

 level than the date plantations. He also writes : ' The people 

 begin to eat the dates when ' ratab ' (literallv moist) but ' ratab ' 



\j \ / 



dates are also gathered and allowed to ripen on the ground, 

 which they do in a few days. Those intended for' export or for 

 keeping are not gathered till they are ripe. In very damp years 

 when there is a danger of mildew, they are gathered when half 



