54 DATE GROWING 







"Date palms may be grown from seed, and are 

 generally so grown in Mexico and India, but if so 

 propagated something over half the palms are males, 

 which produce no fruit whatever, while of the remain- 

 ing female plants probably, on the average, not more 

 than one in ten produces good fruit. This would 

 mean that in planting one hundred seeds, on the 

 average only four or five palms bearing good dates 

 would be secured, and probably as many more of 

 second quality, or in all some 10% of the number 

 planted would yield edible fruit. It should be said 

 that in Arizona, and even in Mexico, very many of 

 the seedling sorts do not reach maturity because of 

 the insufficient summer heat; but if grown in the 

 Salton Basin, where all the sorts could mature, a 

 larger proportion, perhaps 15%, would produce fruit 

 that could be used." 



Ibid., p. 20: 



"The seedlings of a single sort of date may 

 present the most remarkable variations, and usually 

 the parent type is not exactly reproduced by any of 

 the offspring. This is clearly shown by the experi- 

 ments of Col. Sam Taylor, of Winters, Cal,, who tried 

 to propagate from seed the valuable, early-ripening, 

 Wolfskill date on his place. This was done because 

 the palm had ceased to produce offshoots before its 

 value was recognized. Many of these seedling dates 

 have fruited, but none resembles in the slightest 

 degree the parent variety; most of them are much 

 later and consequently fail to mature at Winters, 

 where the summer heat is insufficient to ripen any 

 but the earliest sorts." 



David Fairchild, "Persian Gulf Dates," Bureau 



