132 THE DATE PALM. 



is probably due in part at least to the lowering of the temperature 

 of the soil about the roots 65 and of the air about the leaves by the 

 overflow of cold water from the melting snows of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains. This annual flood occurs in the midst of the hot season, usually 

 early in June, and the waters remain on the land for several weeks. 



Early sorts of dates, such as the Rhars and Teddala, undoubtedly will 

 succeed in this favored region, which has many advantages for this 

 culture. The land is irrigated and fertilized naturally, the dry air 

 favors the ripening of fruit of a good quality, the very low rainfall 

 in spring and autumn permits the date palm to flower and ripen its 

 fruit unhindered by bad weather, and the winters are so mild that no 

 injury by cold is to be apprehended after the young palms have once 

 taken root. 



The date palm has a great advantage over other fruit trees for 

 culture in the flood plain, in that, when once established, it can resist 

 the erosive force of the flood waters without being injured or losing 

 its crop of fruit. There are thousands of acres of this land in Cali- 

 fornia and Arizona now lying waste which could be utilized for this 

 profitable culture if a variety of date palm could be found which pro- 

 duces early ripening fruit fit for drying, and which is adapted to the 

 soil and climatic conditions of this region. Indeed, the chance to 

 secure exuberantly fertile lands, requiring no irrigation, at low 

 prices, gives this flood-plain great economic advantages over other 

 regions for the production of an ordinary or second-class date, such as 

 those that are now imported into this country in enormous quantities 

 from the somewhat similar region about Bassorah, in the valley of the 

 Shat-el-Arab at the head of the Persian Gulf, and from Maskat. No 

 fewer than 9,000 tons of these dates were imported in 1901, so the 

 market is practically unlimited, provided the cost of production can 

 be kept down to a point permitting competition with the oriental 

 dates. The date producer in the Colorado River Valley would have 

 the great advantage over his Bassorah rivals of enormously greater 

 proximity, both in distance and in time, to the great markets in the 

 interior of the United States. 



The prospect for successful culture in this region of the ordinary 

 dried dates, one of the staples of the fruit trade, is so good as to war- 

 rant making a careful search in the Old World date countries for 

 suitable sorts to grow here. Fortunately, the Department of Agri- 

 culture has already secured and has growing in the Cooperative Date 

 Garden at Tempe, Ariz. , many of the early-maturing sorts of dates 

 from the Algerian Sahara, as well as from the valley of the Nile in 

 Egypt and the valley of the Shat-el-Arab at Bassorah, the two latter 

 regions having climatic and soil conditions somewhat resembling those 



a As shown on p. 49, warm irrigation water is very advantageous in date culture. 

 Doubtless the date palm is as sensitive to the soil temperature as to the air temperature. 



