The Golden Rule for Flowers i8i 



During Napoleon's campaigns in Egypt, the natives 

 not having much leisure to attend to husbandry, the plan- 

 tations about Cairo were neglected, and although the trees 

 blossomed as usual the eatable dates were few. 



In the East dates are such an important article of food, 

 and the failure of the crop such a serious loss, that 

 nations at war, and desirous of inflicting as much injury 

 as possible upon one another, were in the habit of cutting 

 down not all the palms indiscriminately, but those bear- 

 ing pollen. On one occasion it is said that the Persians, 

 fearing they might be injured in this way during a civil 

 war, took the precaution of collecting the pollen from the 

 trees, kept it in close vessels for nineteen years, and made 

 successful use of it when peace was restored. 



The Arabs are said always to keep some of the un- 

 opened sheaths containing pollen from year to year, in 

 case of any failure in the blossoms. 



It has been mentioned that pollen may often be borne 

 long distances by the wind, and this has been exemplified 

 in a remarkably interesting way by the case of a date-palm 

 growing near Otranto. The palm is not a native of Italy, 

 and though introduced, does not grow wild; and this 

 specimen, being the only one of its kind in the neighbor- 

 hood, was barren for years. But at last, one year, the 

 young dates, instead of shriveling as usual, remained on 

 the tree and grew to their proper size; and then it was 

 found that a date-tree had flowered that same year for the 

 first time at Brindisi, some forty odd miles away, and had 

 borne pollen-blossoms. This pollen, therefore, had no 

 doubt been carried by the wind to the tree at Otranto. 



The case of another solitary date-tree, growing at Mar- 

 tinique, in the West Indies, is also interesting, though in 



