DATE-FRUITS. 151 



fruits are got the crop value would be Rs. 15,83,811. From 

 the Journal of the Khedevial Agricultural Society, Volume 

 3, No. 0, page 263, November and December, 1901, I find data 

 showing that the average quantity of dates exported from Egypt 

 during a period of 15 years was 645 tons valued at 18 per ton 

 or about 2 pence per Ib. Taking into consideration the prices 

 that dates are sold at, to the working class of people in the Punjab 

 {see page 115, para. 86), the wholesale rates of dates imported 

 into India (see page 142, para. .97), and the prices actually received 

 by us for date-fruits grown on the trees imported into the Punjab 

 from Basra, I do not think I am extravagant if I value those 

 at 1 anna per Ib. If this is so then by merely growing these 

 varieties in place of the seedling females already grown, giving 

 them no more cultivation or attention than is at present given 

 to the local trees and getting only 12 seers (24f Ib.) of fruits 

 per tree, the value of the crop would be raised to Rs. 21,64,541 

 and of 18 seers (36 T 9 o Ib.) were got the value of the crop would 

 be Rs. 32,46,812. In the date groves that I have examined 

 there are over 50 per cent, male trees, and all information to 

 hand seems to indicate that this may be taken as representing 

 the state of affairs throughout the districts. Assuming this to 

 be so then if cultivators would hand-pollinate their trees and 

 thus require only 2 to 3 per cent, of male trees, they could 

 replace the remaining 47 to 48 per cent, of males by good fruit- 

 producing females and have practically double the harvest of 

 fruits, i.e., over Rs. 43,00,000 to Rs. 66,00,000 worth or about four 

 times the value of the present crop from the same land and with 

 the same water-supply. The only extra expenses to the grower 

 would be that of hand-pollination which is practically nothing, 

 and the guarding, collection and curing of the extra fruits. 

 Practically the whole of the difference between Rs. 10,55,874 

 and Rs. 43,00,000 or between Rs. 15,83,811 and Rs. 66,00,000 

 would therefore go into the pockets of the date -growers. This 

 difference of Rs. 30,00,000 to over Rs. 50,00,000 per annum 

 could obviously be far exceeded as the trees would give much 

 more than 12 to 18 seers of fruits each if they were fairly 

 looked after. For these figures it is assumed that no more trees 



