120 DATE GROWING 



and the scientific grower will do his best to get a 

 collection of males of known varieties, even if he has 

 only one of each kind. There are some males in the 

 United States which fulfil all the requirements, and 

 others have been imported from the orient. 



Of the latter class, the best in Southern California 

 has been found to be Ghanami or "bushy head", which 

 was brought from Busreh, where it is the favorite of 

 the most intelligent growers. It begins to furnish 

 pollen in its third year, blooms early in the season, and 

 is prolific, often carrying from twenty to thirty clusters. 

 In Arizona it seems not to have been quite so valuable 

 as in California. 



Other named varieties at Busreh are Hukri, 

 whose name probably signifies "what is laid by in 

 times of scarcity" and points to the storing of pollen 

 from year to year although this practice is rare 

 among modern Mesopotamians; Wardi, "longhaired", 

 and Sumaysmi. None of these, I believe, has been 

 introduced to the United States. 



At Baghdad the number of named varieties of 

 male is larger, fifteen or twenty being distinguished, 

 but all by the name of the female variety of which they 

 are supposed to be a product. One speaks of an 

 Asharasi male, and means that originally it was a 

 seedling of the Asharasi female but no one knows 

 what its male parentage was. Nowadays, of course, 

 the variety is propagated only by offshoots. Asharasi 

 is declared to be the best of all males there, Arabs 

 declaring that it sometimes bears forty or fifty spadices, 

 and that not only is the yield of fruit larger when this 

 variety is used for pollination on any female, but that 

 the flavor of the dates is also better. Accordingly, the 

 best kept gardens contain only this variety of male; 



