LUTHER BURBANK 



plants in general. And whereas the date palm 

 does not thoroughly perfect its fruit, for the most 

 part, except in regions where the summer is very 

 long, this tree may withstand extremes of tempera- 

 ture that are widely removed from anything expe- 

 rienced in the tropics, and other palms generally 

 perfect their fruit wherever they can be grown. 



Indeed, so hardy are some of the palms that the 

 question arises whether it may not be possible by 

 selective breeding and adaptation to develop races 

 of palms that will thrive even in the middle lati- 

 tudes of the eastern United States, and far to the 

 north of their present limits on the Pacific Coast. 

 The fact that most of the palms now growing in 

 California have been introduced within compara- 

 tively recent times, and that they have gradually 

 made their way northward, is suggestive of the 

 possibility of much wider extension of their 

 habitat 



A difficulty in the attempt to carry out any 

 project in selective breeding calculated to give the 

 palm additional hardiness or any other quality is 

 found primarily in the fact that this tree does not 

 mature its fruit until from ten to twenty-five years 

 of age. But in recent years an effort is being made 

 by the Department of Agriculture and by several 

 private individuals, to introduce races of date 

 palms that will bear marketable fruit, and the 



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