ORNAMENTAL PALMS 239 



to introduce races of date palms that will bear 

 marketable fruit, and study of tlie palm that has 

 been undertaken in this connection will doubt- 

 less lead to important results. Even now it has 

 been demonstrated that just as good dates can 

 be grown here as in the Sahara. 



It appears that the palm, notwithstanding its 

 relative fixity, is subject to considerable vari- 

 ation, and that this is particularly true of the 

 date palm fruit, as might be expected consider- 

 ing that this tree has been under cultivation from 

 prehistoric periods, and because it has been 

 selected for the fruit alone. 



The most delicate and delicious date fruits are 

 not the ones that can be secured for export, so 

 that these varieties can never be seen on the 

 American market until they are grown here. All 

 the best date palms, unlike most other palms, are 

 grown from suckers which come up from about 

 the roots of the tree. 



To be sure, the Oriental peoples, for whom 

 the date has supplied a most important food 

 product from the earliest periods, have probably 

 paid very little attention to selective breeding. 

 Still the broad general fact that "like produces 

 like" has been matter of common knowledge 

 from remotest antiquit3% and it can hardly be 

 doubted that a certain amount of more or less 



