110 



THE DATE PALM. 



To summarize, the date palm can grow on the following- areas in 

 the surveyed region without any especial provision being made for 

 drainage: 



TABLE 40. Area of lands in the surveyed portion of the Salton Basin suitable for date 



culture. 



In all some 59,520 acres, or 76 per cent of the 78,000 acres of sur- 

 veyed land level enough to permit irrigation, is immediately available 

 for profitable date culture without artificial drainage, while the date 

 palm will grow on an additional 12.5 per cent of the land, though it 

 probably will not fruit well unless the soil is drained. 



With proper drainage almost all the surveyed area except about 

 3,000 acres of clay soil could be rendered suitable for date culture by 

 washing out the alkali. Only 6 out of 156 borings made by Messrs. 

 Means and Holmes showed a percentage of alkali so high as to be 

 dangerous to the life of the date palm. 



The immense importance of date culture for this region becomes at 

 once apparent. It is the only profitable culture that can be followed 

 on a quarter of the irrigable area too alkaline for other crops, while 

 the climatic, soil, and water conditions are here so favorable for the 

 date palm (see pp. 52 to 72) that it will pay to plant the choice sorts 

 even on the best lands where many other crops would succeed. 



It becomes of the greatest importance to introduce the Deglet Noor 

 date into this region, where all the conditions combine to render its 

 culture profitable, and where at the same time it is necessary in order 

 to utilize a large part of the area already occupied and irrigated. a 



a Very recently (March, 1904), since this bulletin was sent to the Printing Office, 

 the Department of Agriculture has established, in cooperation with the California 

 Experiment Station, an experimental date garden in the Salton Basin at Mecca, Cal. 

 [Mecca was called Walters until January, 1904, and is so shown on all old maps and 

 on fig. 10, p. 102.] At the same time a large number of offshoots of the best sorts of 

 date palms (including many of the Deglet Noor variety) were ordered from the prin- 

 cipal centers of date culture in the Algerian Sahara. In addition, several large Deglet 

 Noor palms are being transplanted bodily, with large balls of earth about the roots, 

 from Tempe, Ariz. , in order to test as soon as possible the ability of this variety to 

 fruit in the Salton Basin. 



