216 MANUAL OF TROPICAL AND SUBTROPICAL FRUITS 



retail dealer can display in his store as he does a bunch of 

 bananas. Dates of inferior quality can be worked up into 

 various by-products, such as "date butter," or sweetmeats, 

 or may be sold to bakers and confectioners. Culls are used in 

 the Orient for the distillation of arrak, or as feed for live-stock. 

 Soft early dates, which in many cases are of a beautiful color 

 as well as delicious flavor but which lack keeping quality, prob- 

 ably could be sold in crates as are berries and be similarly 

 handled as perishable fruits. Marketing should be carried on 

 through a growers' cooperative association, which can guard the 

 interests of all by insisting on proper standards. 



For a bearing plantation with fifty palms to the acre, 100 

 pounds of fruit to a tree each year is a conservative estimate of 

 the yield. This means 5000 pounds of fruit an acre each year, 

 the retail value ranging from 2 cents a pound in the Orient to 

 $1 a pound in the United States. Growers in the Coachella 

 Valley have been able for some years to sell practically all the 

 good dates they produce at 25 cents to 75 cents a pound at the 

 \j plantation. Such a price is not likely to be maintained, since 

 dates of many varieties can be grown, picked, and packed at a 

 total cost of not more than 5 cents a pound ; but there are no 

 present indications of an early decrease in price. If it should 

 fall to an average of 20 cents a pound, this would still allow the 

 satisfactory gross income of $1000 an acre from fruit alone, 

 while the offshoots of good varieties at present prices ($5 to $15 

 each) are a valuable factor and may be worth almost as much 

 to the orchardist as the fruit. Offshoots, in fact, should more 

 than pay the whole cost of running a young plantation, leaving 

 the entire proceeds from the fruit as clear profit. 



PESTS AND DISEASES 



There are two scale insects, found wherever dates grow, that 

 are troublesome to the orchardist. The Parlatoria scale 



