136 THE DATE PALM. 



In view of the great number of seedling dates that occur in Lower 

 California and Sonora, it is probable that there are among them some 

 valuable sorts which should be found and introduced into Arizona for 

 trial. Unfortunately the older trees, whose value is best known, have 

 long ago ceased to produce offshoots, so that such sorts can not be pro- 

 pagated. 



PROFITS OF DATE CULTURE. 



Wherever the Deglet Noor and other choice late varieties of dates 

 can be grown date culture will be exceedingly profitable. In a region 

 like the Salton Basin, California, where the winters are never cold 

 enough to harm seriously old date palms, where the spring arid 

 autumn seasons are practically rainless, preventing injury to the 

 flowers or to the ripening fruits, and, above all, where the summers 

 are always hot enough to insure the perfect ripening of the fruit, the 

 certainty of a crop is almost absolute, especially as the land is very 

 fertile and the irrigation water of good quality. 



The average yield of a Deglet Noor date palm is variously put at 

 from 88 to 132 pounds. Counting only 75 pounds to a tree, the yield 

 per acre would be 4,500 pounds if the trees were planted at the usual 

 distance of 26f feet. Such dates, even of the second grade, sell on 

 our markets at from 35 to 50 cents a pound at retail when packed in 

 fancy boxes, and would bring probably one-quarter as much in bulk at 

 wholesale, or from 8 to 12 cents a pound, especially as the}^ would ripen 

 in the Salton Basin early enough for the Holiday markets. Allow- 

 ing 10 per cent for loss in packing, there would still be 4,000 pounds 

 of dates to the acre. Of this crop about 1,000 pounds would be of the 

 first grade (see p. 35), worth, say, 10 cents a pound at wholesale; 

 1,300 pounds would be second grade, such as now reach our markets 

 packed in three-quarter pound paper boxes, worth about 8-j- cents a 

 pound, and the remaining 1,700 pounds would be third-class dates, to 

 be sold in bulk at, say, 2 cents a pound, or in all some $250 worth 

 from one acre. The care required by the date palm is much less than 

 that necessary for any other fruit tree, and the fruit cures naturally 

 on the tree and can be gathered quickly and easily by cutting off a 

 whole bunch at a time. It is probable, therefore, that $100 per acre 

 would cover all the fixed expenses of an orchard of Deglet Noor 

 palms in full bearing, leaving a profit of some $150 per acre. 



Offshoots bear fair crops of fruit from three to five years a after 

 being planted, which is but little, if any, longer than many other fruit 

 trees, such as the orange, fig, pear, etc., require to reach fruiting age. 

 The date palm comes into full bearing from eight to twelve years after 

 being planted, and lives to a much greater age than any other fruit 



A proof of the ability of a date offshoot to fruit abundantly at an early age is 

 afforded by the Deglet Noor offshoot shown in Plate XXII, which was set out at 

 Tempe, Ariz., in July, 1900, and which when photographed in August, 1903, just 

 three years and one month later, bore three fair-sized bunches of fruit. 



