DATE CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA. 125 



Indeed, the summer climate at Orland, Corning, Tehama, and Vina, 

 in latitude 40, seems to be as good as at Winters, and to be only 

 slightly less suitable at Red Bluff or even at Redding, latitude 40 30', 

 almost under Mount Shasta. Nowhere else in the world are there any 

 such extensive regions north of latitude 35 where dates can be grown 

 successfully. 



Even if dates suitable for drying can not be produced here, it will 

 certainly be possible for settlers all through this region to produce 

 fresh dates for their own tables, and it is quite probable that these 

 fresh dates can be shipped to the principal Pacific coast cities without 

 spoiling. 



Coast region of southern California. Although the winters are 

 never severe enough to injure the date palm and almost no rain falls 

 during summer and early autumn, it is nevertheless very improbable 

 that good dates can be grown in this part of California, for the simple 

 reason that the winds which blow off the ocean are cold and humid and 

 prevent the summer heat from being sufficient to ripen dates for 25 

 miles or more from the coast. It has been found that the date palm 

 does occasionally ripen fruit at San Diego (see PI. XX, fig. 1), but 

 the plant is forced entirely out of its normal habits by the very low 

 temperatures which prevail here in spring and summer, and instead of 

 flowering in April, as it does in the Sahara, often does not open its 

 flower clusters until August, in which event the half -grown dates hang 

 on the trees in a green condition all through the winter and ripen only 

 during the following summer. The date palm referred to above, 

 which ripens its fruit at Nice, may be found adapted to the climate of 

 this coast region, but unfortunately this tree has not yet produced any 

 vigorous offshoots and only seedlings are available for testing in Cali- 

 fornia. The best chance of securing dates capable of ripening in this 

 region is by cross fertilizing early varieties with the pollen of the 

 Canary Island palm (Phoenix canariensis), which, being adapted to the 

 relatively cool and humid, though nearly rainless, summer climate of 

 these islands, is able to mature its thin-pulped and flavorless fruit all 

 along the California coast, even as far north as San Francisco. It is 

 probable that the palm at Nice is such a hybrid, and that it will be easy 

 for plant breeders, by selecting among numerous hybrids, to find a sort 

 much better than this chance seedling. 



NEVADA. 



It is probable that the date palm may be fruited successfully in some 

 of the protected valleys in southern Nevada; early sorts are, indeed, 

 almost certain to succeed in the valley of the Colorado River wherever 

 there is 'any land that can be planted. The actual flood plain, being 

 both higher in altitude and farther north than in California and Arizona, 



