DATE CULTURE IN ARIZONA. 127 



adapted to the culture of the date palm. The whole of the valley of 

 the Colorado, so far as it is irrigable, and especially the flood plain 

 naturally irrigated by seepage from the river and by the annual over- 

 flow, is also adapted to the culture of the date palm, but probably 

 only the earlier varieties will succeed. Of the regions just mentioned, 

 only two are now furnished with a sufficient supply of water to ren- 

 der date culture possible on any large scale. These are the Salt River 

 Valley from Mesa westward to Peoria, and the flood plain of the Colo- 

 rado River. Wherever small amounts of water are available in the 

 other valle3^s they could be utilized for irrigating date palms, which 

 would undoubtedly succeed, and it is probable that in the future, with 

 increased facilities for irrigation, the upper and lower valleys of the 

 Gila will prove especially suited to this culture. 



There is a region in south central Arizona, lying to the south of the 

 Casa Grande ruins, where there are said to be thousands of acres cov- 

 ered with a heavy growth of mesquite trees (Prosopus velutinusf] and 

 where water is found at a depth of from 20 to 30 feet below the sur- 

 face. It is not impossible that if date palms were irrigated in this 

 region when young, they might be able to grow without irrigation 

 after the roots reached moisture. At any rate, both here and else- 

 where, where a heavy growth of mesquite occurs and where there are 

 indications of underground water near the surface, it would be desir- 

 able to make trial plantations of the date palm. 



Salt Riv&r Valley. This fertile region, which is one of the largest 

 of the irrigated valleys in the Southwest, is situated in central Ari- 

 zona (latitude 33 25'). Its principal towns are Phoenix, Tempe, and 

 Mesa. As has already been mentioned, the date palms planted by the 

 earlier settlers have been striking^ successful (see Yearbook, 1900, 

 PI. LVII); in fact, it is no exaggeration to say that there are more 

 bearing date palms producing fruit of good quality in the Salt River 

 Valley than in all the rest of the United States. The Cooperative 

 Date Garden at Tempe (see Pis. XXI and XXII) on June 15, 1902, had 

 on hand (including a few palms at the experiment station farm at Phoe- 

 nix) 556 trees, belonging to 81 varieties. Besides these 81 imported 

 varieties, there are a number of seedling sorts of merit which have 

 originated in the Salt River Valley, so that in all there are probably 

 nearly 100 distinct varieties of date palms now on trial in this valley. a 

 Prof. James W. Tourney, while connected with the University of Ari- 

 zona, investigated the whole subject of the culture of the date palm in 

 the United States and brought out very clearly in a bulletin 6 published 

 in June, 1898, the fact that in these regions only had the plants imported 



Forbes, R. H. Thirteenth Annual Report, Arizona Experiment Station, 1902, 

 p. 244. 



& Tourney, W. J. The Date Palm, University of Arizona, Arizona Agricultural 

 Experiment Station, Bulletin No. 29, Tucson, Ariz., June, 1898. 



