SOME OTHER TROPICAL AND SUBTROPICAL FRUITS. 211 



over four hundred pounds of large fine fruit in this dry 

 interior region, are all, so far as known to the writer, 

 seedlings. Some of these seedlings, however, we know 

 from testing bear larger and better fruit than the varieties 

 imported by the United States Department of Agriculture 

 from Algeria in 1891 and 1892, and planted at Phosnix, 

 Arizona. Better results are expected from those secured 

 in Algeria in 1899 by a special agent of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture. 



The Algerian dates and those from Arabia thrive as well 

 as the old seedlings, and have borne fruit freely when only 

 eight years old. The best varieties are now known, and 

 the planting of date orchards with suckers of the best 

 varieties, with proper alternation of the staminate and 

 pistillate plants, has now started. 



The present consumption of dates from the hot desert 

 climates of Asia and Africa is light when compared with 

 other commercial tropical fruits. Many who know the 

 methods of preparing, drying, and pressing into boxes for 

 shipping in the far East will not touch the fruit, and those 

 who are less fastidious eat the pasty, dried dates sparingly. 

 As picked fresh from the trees it is one of the most 

 delicious and wholesome fruits of the tropics. The writer's 

 experience fully agrees with that of Mr. W. G. Palgrave, 

 who says in his "Central and Eastern Arabia:" "Those 

 who, like most Europeans, only know the date from the 

 dried specimens in shop windows, can hardly imagine how 

 delicious it is when eaten fresh. Nor is it, when eaten 

 fresh, heating a defect inherent to the preserved fruit 

 everywhere; nor does its richness bring satiety. In short, 

 it is an article of food alike pleasant and healthy." 



If grown commercially and put up neatly in dried or 

 canned form in southeast California and Arizona, it would 



