NEW PLANT IMMIGRANTS 
paying crop, and it will live in the 
hottest regions on the face of the © 
globe; not even a temperature of 
125 degrees F. will affect it. This 
obliging plant does not, however, 
insist on such temperatures, but 
will stand some frost, and has 
been known to live where the 
mercury falls to r2 degrees F. 
It is also the only wood obtain- 
able in the oases of the Sahara, 
and on the shores of Arabia boats 
are made of it. 
The date palm has both male 
and female flowers and they occur 
on separate plants, and the Arabs 
have to plant one male for every 
plantation of a hundred females, 
making a harem as it were. The 
artificial pollination or fertiliza- 
tion of the female palms is one 
of the most interesting processes 
practiced with plants, a spray of 
flowers from a male palm being 
bound with a bit of palm-leaf 
fiber in each inflorescence of the 
female tree. Propagation of the 
date palm can be accomplished by 
means of seeds, or suckers, which 
are thrown up at the base of the 
palm. Suckers will start, how- 
ever, on land so salty that the 
seeds refuse to grow on it. 
Four years from seed, trees of 
891 
“8 
some varieties begin to bear and in 
six years will have paying crops 
of dates. They live to a much 
preater age than almost any other 
of the fruit trees, and specimens 
a century old are said to be still a 
Photo by David Fairchild 
AN ARAB IRRIGATING HIS DATE PALMS IN BAGDAD 
Four thousand years ago his ancestors watered their 
date palms along the banks of the Tigris. The intro- 
duction of this oldest of cultivated crops into America 
will remain as a historical. event after generations of 
good investment. 
The date is not a dry-land crop, 
but requires irrigation to grow and pro- 
duce fruit. A plantation once established 
requires to be kept free of weeds, to be 
pollinated when the palms come into 
bloom, and to have the fruit harvested 
when ripe. Of insect pests we know 
too little as yet, though the prospective 
planter should count this in his estimate 
of expense; remembering, however, that 
modern scientific methods have over- 
come the greatest fruit pests, and that 
Americans have come and gone. 
these on the palm are not different in 
general character from those which are 
now under complete control. 
Very little pruning of the palms is 
necessary, and the harvesting is very 
simple, since the dates grow in great 
bunches, which often weigh from 20 to 
40 pounds apiece. 
There are over a hundred varieties of 
dates now growing in the government 
gardens in California and Arizona, from 
