140 THE DATE PALM. 



condemnations on the other. To attempt to produce dates in Florida or 

 in the coast region of California because the date palm grows well there, 

 would be to commit a capital error, for no marketable dates can be 

 produced in climates so humid as that of Florida or so cool as that of 

 the California coast. To try to grow drying dates of the ordinary mid- 

 season or late sorts in the interior valley region of California because 

 the Wolf skill date palm at Winters produces every year a good crop 

 of palatable dates would be an error almost as disastrous, because 

 only very early sorts, for the most part unsuited for drying or for 

 export, can be matured in this region. 



It is confidently to be expected that in a few years this new branch 

 of biologic and economic science which concerns itself with the deter- 

 mination of the exact requirements of crop plants as to climate and 

 soil, and with the finding of the limits of their powers to resist unfa- 

 vorable influences such as cold, excessive heat, drought, alkali, violent 

 winds, etc., along with a study of the cultural requirements and market 

 conditions of the new industry, will become so well known and its value 

 so well recognized that it will become a comparatively easy matter to 

 enlist the necessar} T capital and skill in a new culture when once detailed 

 life history investigations have furnished a sound basis for judgment 

 as to the chances of its proving a financial success in any given region. 

 After such studies have been made, or during their progress, a few 

 carefully planned demonstrations in suitable localities conducted by 

 the Department of Agriculture, the State experiment stations, or in 

 cooperation with skillful planters will take the place of haphazard 

 testing by experimenters, and of the usually indecisive and often enor- 

 mousry expensive trials b} 7 private growers. 



Millions of dollars have been thrown away in attempts to grow crop 

 plants in regions where a properly carried out life history investiga- 

 tion would have shown that there was no hope of success. Unfounded 

 inflation of values "of agricultural lands, and the rush into new cultures 

 in unsuitable regions by whole communities at a time as the result of 

 a " boom," could largely be avoided were it possible to furnish the 

 would-be planter with a black-and-white statement of the necessities 

 of the crop plants under discussion, whereby he would be able to 

 question intelligently whether the region were adapted to the pro- 

 posed cultures. 



At present it is no exaggeration to state that the life history require- 

 ments and the limits of the power to resist unfavorable environmental 

 conditions are far better known for many microscopic lower plants, 

 such as bacteria, fungi, and algae, even for species having no economic 

 importance, than for the most important crop plants whose culture 

 provides employment for tens of millions, and whose products consti- 

 tute the daily food of hundreds of millions of human beings. Such a 

 condition is discreditable alike to biological and to agricultural science 

 and should not longer continue. 



