254 [Assembly 



flowers to the launches of female flowers. If the wind does not 

 convey the pollen to the female, they cover the male with the 

 houmous or cloak, or mats, so as to save pollen for the barren 

 females. It is interesting to see the care taken of these opera- 

 tions — to see them remove the bournous or mats as soon as the 

 wind is fair for the pollen to reach the barren females. 



The dates are gathered in November, and the best of them, 

 when preserved, will keep 12 or 15 years. The inferior dates are 

 fed to horses, mixed with barley or with safsa (luzerne, I sup- 

 pose.) The Arabs pretend that neither beast nor man should eat 

 dates alone. They mix camel's milk or cheese with dates. When 

 a date tree is barren, they make incisions, and extract the sap, of 

 which they make a sort of wine, which intoxicates when taken to 

 excess. It is, in moderation, an agreeable beverage. One tree 

 will give at least a pail full per day, for many months together. 

 When it stops they shut up the holes with sand, secured over 

 with camel's skin. The Arabs say this renders the tree fertile. 

 The natives say that seedling date trees are generally barren, and 

 of a less fine growth than those from offsets. When the tree is as 

 high as a man, it throws out shoots; these are taken off and 

 planted in the soil — I should say sand — constantly watered by 

 little rivulets of water. At six or seven years old they begin to 

 give their fruit. This date tree serves to the men of the desert as 

 the cocoa-nut tree does to the men of islands." 



Extract from a lecture by Mr. Brockedon, at the Royal Institu- 

 tion, London, March 24, 1851 : 



" Caoutchouc is a vegetable constituent, the produce of several 

 trees. The most prolific in this substance are siphonia caoutchouc, 

 urceola elastica, ficus elastica, &c. Of these the siphonia caout- 

 chouc extends over a vast district in Central America, and the caout- 

 chouc obtained from this tree is best adapted for its manufactures. 

 Over more than ten thousand square miles in Assam the ficus 

 elastica is abundant. The urceola elastica (which produces the 

 gintawan of the Malays) abounds in the islands of the Indian Ar- 

 chipelago. It is described as a creeper of growth so rapid that 



