LUTHER BURBANK 



study of the palm that has been undertaken in this 

 connection will doubtless 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 variation, 

 and that this is particularly true of the date palm 

 fruit, as might be expected considering that this 

 tree has been under cultivation from pre-historic 

 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 

 antiquity, and it can hardly be doubted that a cer- 

 tain amount of more or less intelligent selection of 

 the trees that bear the best fruit, with attempts to 

 raise seedlings from these trees and thus secure 



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