104 DATEGROWING 



gusts; for, contrary to other trees, this tapers down- 

 ward and the slenderest part of the stalk is nearest 

 the foot, which has made some suppose that the plant, 

 though large, receives no nourishment from the earth 

 by the root, but by the air. 



"There is no tree more profitable, or turns to 

 greater account than this." 



The natural pollination mentioned by Veslingus 

 seems to have been exceptional, however, for in 1800, 

 when the French invasion prevented work in the fields, 

 the palms around Cairo were not pollinated, and the 

 crop was a total failure.* 



At the present time no dependence whatever is 

 placed upon nature in the orient, and even the most 

 isolated clumps of palms around water holes in the 

 desert will, if they bear dates, be found to have been 

 pollinated by some nomad Arab who looks on them 

 as his property. A few cases have been noted in 

 America where pollen has been carried, perhaps by 

 insects, for distances of a quarter of a mile or more, 

 but there is little data on which to form an opinion 

 as to the possibilities of the fecundation of a female 

 in a date growing country, without the aid of the 

 grower, and the question is of no practical interest. 

 An Italian poet of the fifteenth centuryf describes 

 the pollination of a palm near Otranto by pollen 

 carried by the wind from a male forty-five miles 

 distant, but it is to be feared that his poetic tempera- 

 ment interfered with his truthfulness. 



The method of pollination in America is the same 

 as that practised in the orient, and it is given so clearly 



elile, Egyptian Flora. 

 fPontanus. 



